Kik has been on a bit of a tear recently. After a year of inaction in the increasingly cutthroat market for OTT messaging apps, in November Kik launched a new update called Cards, which introduced HTML5-based mini-apps into its service and took advantage of its growing network of users. Since then Kik’s rate of growth has doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 new installs per day and its total customer base has grown from 30 million to 50 million registered users, the company said. Those customers have downloaded about 25 million of the card mini-apps, Kik said.

Banerji said the added functionality evolves Kik from just another OTT text upstart to a social communications platform. “There are similarities between Kik and Twitter when it comes to growth, engagement and vision,” Banerji said in a statement.

Based in Waterloo, Canada, the company is in a very crowded market where multiple dozens of competing messaging apps vie to lure consumers away from SMS into their private their networks. WhatsApp is the undisputed king of those apps, but there are numerous others, ranging from Pinger to Vibe to TextMe, all offering a slightly different set of communications features to distinguish themselves.

Kik raised an $8 million round in 2011 from Union Square Ventures, RRE Ventures and Spark Capital. All three of those investors participated in its Series B.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile
• How consumer media will change in 2013

Libon appeared for iOS in November last year, giving Orange a clear competitor to so-called over-the-top (OTT) applications such as Skype and WhatsApp. Like T-Mobile USA’s Bobsled and Telefonica’s Tu Me, the app provided free HD calls and messaging to other users of the same platform — regardless of their carrier — as well as voicemail transcription.

Now it’s available on Android as well as iOS. According to Giles Corbett of the Orange Vallée R&D department, the Android version is “completely integrated” into the native OS in a way that isn’t possible with iOS (see also, Facebook Home). “For instance, it integrates all of your incoming and outgoing GSM calls and SMSs in all of the conversations,” he noted, adding that setup, including the redirection of voicemail, could all be controlled from within the app.

On the iOS side, meanwhile, the new version — to be set live on Tuesday — will remain a step ahead of its Android counterpart, with the integration of audio chat (as in, conducting an asynchronous conversation using audio messages) and photo messaging. That said, Corbett said this functionality would be added to the Android version in the coming weeks.

I asked Corbett how Orange’s OTT efforts were keeping pace with developments such as Telefonica’s Tu Go, which gives O2 U.K. contract customers a Wi-Fi-capable app through which they can make and receive calls and texts using their existing number, with charges being integrated with their standard bill.

Corbett responded by pointing out that Libon creates a similar experience for customers of certain Orange operators. For example, customers of Orange’s low-cost Sosh brand in France can use Libon to call landlines and mobile numbers on “advantageous terms”, with call recipients seeing the caller’s standard number and — for calls to certain countries, at least — with charges coming out of their standard allowance.

Meanwhile, Orange Poland is to adopt a similar strategy, and by the end of June Libon will be integrated with core Orange services in 5 countries. For those who just want to use it as an OTT app alongside core services from other carriers, availability stretches to 95 countries. “It’s a way for Orange to reach and explore new customer bases,” Corbett said.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market
• Survey: the next wave of enterprise mobility

In a statement on Wednesday, the Cyprus-based startup said the new version of its BlackBerry app, which was previewed in January, included free calls to other Viber users for those on BlackBerry OS5 and OS7, as well as “performance improvements” for OS5 and various other bug fixes. However, BlackBerry 10 – the make-or-break latest version of the platform – is not supported.

“BlackBerry is one of the most important markets for us and represents our third largest user base,” Viber CEO Talmon Marco said. “We are thrilled to bring this community free voice calling, letting them communicate freely with all of their important contacts across multiple platforms.”

The release means that, over two years after Viber first hit the scene, the only remaining major platforms on which Viber is a voiceless, text-and-photo-only service are Nokia Series 40 and Samsung’s Bada OS. The omission of BlackBerry 10 support isn’t as crazy as it might sound — most BlackBerry users will still be on older versions of the platform, and the company is still launching new BlackBerry OS7 devices in emerging markets.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis

The site’s sources claim WhatsApp is apparently in a strong negotiating position, bargaining up a prospective deal to near $1 billion. Digital Trends only cited an unnamed inside source, so we’ll have to wait to see if anything comes of it.

WhatsApp tried to quashed that rumor pretty quickly. Speaking to AllThingsD late Monday, WhatsApp business development head Neeraj Arora said the messaging company is not in any sales discussions with Google.

Why would Google want WhatsApp? Well, it probably doesn’t need the technology. The company has already built cross-platform communications apps that provide the same intrinsic service as WhatsApp and other mobile over-the-top communications apps. But Google has admitted in the past that it’s done a poor job servicing its messaging users, and recently it’s been focusing more attention on the space, merging its Talk, Messenger and Hangouts apps into a single service.

But in the fast-paced world of peer-to-peer communications, the spoils go to those who build the biggest network. Google has got to be impressed by just how big WhatsApp has gotten in the last few years. WhatsApp doesn’t release specific numbers, but in November, App Annie found that WhatsApp was the top paid in 119 countries — including the U.S. — in Apple’s iTunes App Store. WhatsApp Messenger has also racked up more than 100 million Android installs. What makes WhatsApp even more intriguing is that it charges by the download (though the fee is only 99 cents) — it’s growing by leaps in bounds in a market where the software typically comes free.

If Google is interested in WhatsApp, it could be making the same calculation as Facebook when it bought Instagram for $1 billion. While Facebook could have developed its own image-filter and sharing app, Instagram was already well on its way to becoming the dominant photo-based social network on mobile. Google may not want to risk WhatsApp eating its lunch in the exploding OTT mobile messaging market — or worse, see it bought by a competitor.

This post was updated on Tuesday at 10:30 AM, adding comments WhatsApp VP Neeraj Arora’s comments to AllThingsD.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile
• Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market
• Analyzing the wearable computing market

The new integrated messaging feature basically divorces Verizon’s SMS service from the device it’s attached to, virtualizing the customer’s messaging client in an Android tablet or iPad app or within a web browser. In the PC, you can activate the service in the My Messaging tab once logged into the Verizon’s customer portal. So long as the messaging portal remains open, messages will start popping up in your PC (Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox are supported, though Explorer won’t receive pop-up notifications). On the tablet, the service works like any other messaging apps, spawning push notifications whenever a new SMS or MMS is received.

The service works very similar to many SMS forwarding and cloud-based SMS applications we’ve seen from messaging outfits like MightyText, Zipwhip or DeskSMS. The difference between, say, a MightyText and Verizon Messaging, is that Verizon isn’t intercepting messages as they reach the phone. They’re coming straight from Verizon SMS infrastructure, and require no phone client. You can utilize the service no matter what kind of mobile phone you use or whether the phone is even turned on or connected.

As over-the-top messaging services like WhatsApp, Pinger, TextMe and TextPlus start to attract users, as well as platform-specific apps like Apple’s iMessage and BlackBerry Messenger, carriers are starting to see more messaging traffic move off their traditional SMS networks. Operators like Rogers in Canada, AT&T – and now Verizon — have been trying to combat that trend by expanding their communications capabilities (and the phone number associated with them) beyond the phone.

It will be interesting to see if Verizon uses this as a building block for more cloud communications services. It could start virtualizing the phone’s voice capabilities in the browser or tablet, turning it into a mobile carrier version of Skype or Google Voice.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues

Those apps — which include Skype, Pinger, WhatsApp, Tango and Viber — are all great apps, said Julien Decot, the new VP of business development and monetization at TextMe. The problem, Decot claimed, is they’re five separate apps, each specializing in a different set of features. TextMe, however, has a plan to combine the best aspects of each of those services into a single multidimensional communications tool.

Decot spent the last five years at Skype tailoring the VoIP giant’s corporate strategy, and while he believes Skype has designed a juggernaut of a communication platform, it was one that was always optimized for a PC environment. The hole Skype left in mobile was filled led by numerous mobile over-the-top (OTT) communications apps like WhatsApp. What the market needed, Decot said, is a made-for-mobile Skype incorporating the new features of the emerging class of OTT apps.

Note: This story is just one in an occasional series of stories on important under-the-radar mobile startups.

Starting with a clean slate

Julien Decot

Microsoft obviously wasn’t going to rebuild Skype from scratch, but Decot found his new Skype in TextMe, a 2-year-old San Francisco bootstrapped startup, which has already seen 10 million installs in the last two years of its Android, iOS and Windows Phone apps.

TextMe provides a unified voice, messaging and video chat platform, but it can also reach beyond its own network of users to touch any phone number in the U.S. and more than 200 other countries. It’s designed a device-agnostic platform that can turn any tablet into a phone. And to top it all off it’s created a “freemium” charging platform that allows customers to earn credits for services they would normally pay for.

One of the most interesting aspects is how it has overcome one of biggest problems plaguing a new over-the-top app developer: cultivating the network effect. To become truly useful, a communication or social network needs a large number of users. TextMe has solved this problem by issuing every user a phone number just as Google Voice does in the PC world. That means any TextMe member can automatically send and receive text messages from any mobile device as well as place or receive calls from any phone — whether or not the person at the opposite end is a TextMe user.

Of course, not all of the services are free. As with its competitors’ apps, all in-network SMS, voice and video communications are gratis, but TextMe also doesn’t charge for out-of-network text messages to U.S. numbers or for any inbound call, no matter where it originates. TextMe charges for phone calls to non-TextMe numbers, both domestic and international, and this week TextMe this week also introduced a paid international SMS feature.

Customers start out with 10 free credits, which is enough for a 10 minute domestic or U.K. call or a two-and-a-half minute call to France. TextMe sells credits in buckets: $1 for 40 credits or $10 for a bundle of 500. But the startup also offers ways for customers to earn credits through promotions. If you watch video advertisements or download promoted apps from your devices app store, you’ll accrue credits in one-to 20-point increments.

“Most of our credits are earned not purchased, but that’s fine with us, as long as it keeps our customers happy,” Decot said. “We get revenue either way.”

Forget innovation. We need aggregation.

Like I said before, all of these features are available in one form or another in other OTT apps. Pinger assigns phone numbers to handle its voice messaging and out-of-network texts and calls. Skype and Tango offer in-network video chat, and Skype offers exposure to the wider telephone grid with SkypeIN and SkypeOut. WhatsApp is the king of rich-media mobile messaging. TextMe just wraps them all into a single service.

TextMe has so far focused its efforts on smartphones, tablets and iPod Touch (effectively turning the Wi-Fi device into a softphone), but the company is exploring PC clients — bringing it full circle back to Skype — and even WebRTC browser-based communications technologies, Decot said. TextMe will even let you make a mobile phone call without a mobile network connection, tapping into Open Garden’s ad hoc mesh network.

As for competition, take your pick. There is more OTT software in mobile app stores than you can shake a line of code at. The company closest to TextMe’s model, though, is the similarly named TextPlus (formerly named Gogii), which also issues a phone number to each and every user. Last time we checked, TextPlus had racked up 27 million users, and it is even showing signs of adopting an earned-credit charging model via a new partnership with FreedomPop.

TextMe, though, has stumbled onto an interesting idea. A quick look at my smartphone reveals a miasma of IM, chat and social communication apps. If I wanted to reach out to my wife there are literally 20 different services I could use to reach her. Each of those services offers some kind of compelling feature to recommend it — not only could I call, IM, text or video chat with her I could use an app like Sidecar or Glympse to let her know where I am or where I’m going.

What I really want is one service that does all of the above.

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that TextMe was able to reach 40-plus countries with its international voice and SMS services. The company recently expanded its reach to over 200 countries.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

The carriers hate OTT apps because – they claim – they don’t make any money off them. This is nonsense, of course: when they’re not being blocked or throttled by the operators, the use of these apps drives the sales of new devices, and of the data services themselves. The real reason carriers hate them is because they’re often better rivals to the carriers’ own legacy services, including voice (Skype, for example) and SMS (WhatsApp).

And so the carriers have been experimenting with services that act as direct rivals to the likes of Skype and WhatsApp: Orange has Libon, T-Mobile USA has Bobsled and Telefonica has Tu Me. The problem is, these apps all just do what their third-party rivals do. For the carriers that are putting them out, they act as little more than brand ambassadors. They don’t actually create much value for the carriers’ existing customers, nor are their new platforms innovative enough to lure users from third-party rivals.

Until now. Someone has finally got the point. The carrier in question is Telefonica again, and the app – now available for O2 UK contract customers only – is called Tu Go. The proposition is very simple. Using the Tu Go app on Android, iOS or the PC, subscribers can make and receive calls and texts over Wi-Fi using their normal mobile number. The calls and texts come out of their standard allowances.

But surely it’s better to use a new-generation platform, I hear you say. Not always. For example, I work from home and I call people using Skype an awful lot, largely because the mobile coverage in my apartment is dreadful. Skype’s cheaper than mobile in most cases, but it doesn’t show the recipient of my calls the phone number printed on my business cards. Also, it means having multiple billing accounts. With a service like Tu Go, problem solved.

This isn’t trying to create yet another platform. All it’s doing is using the power of the app to bring legacy functionality into the modern age; to make it more useful. Telefonica has realized that you don’t fight the upstart by creating a separate platform to your core product: you adapt and extend your core product instead.

Will it be enough to fend off the upstarts? For some users, it will; for those who gave up on their mobile operator a while back, it won’t. But it’s the first OTT app I’ve seen from a carrier that doesn’t feel like they’re flailing around in response to their IP-only rivals. Having covered this stuff for a while, I could weep with joy.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis

You can make that case for crowdsourced mesh-networking company Open Garden and over-the-top IP communications provider TextMe, which plan to announce an alliance on Friday.

Here’s the problem: TextMe turns devices that weren’t intended to be phones into phones. Its downloadable clients for the iPod touch, iPad and Android tablets bring text, voice and video chat capabilities — all linked to phone number — to what were previously data only devices. Those devices depend on an internet connection, but in most cases are only capable of receiving Wi-Fi signals: Being able to text and talk doesn’t do you much good if there’s no network connection to be found.

Open Garden has created an app that allows consumers to share their connections to the internet through a Wi-Fi mesh – sort of a utopian community that works together to ensure everyone gets the best possible connection. However, for Open Garden to really get going, it needs scale. The more devices its client is loaded into, the more broadband options are available to everyone.

So, TextMe and Open Garden have linked their apps. Starting this week anyone downloading the TextMe app to an Android device (it already has 8 million installs to its credit) will also be given the option to download the Open Garden software as well.

When the TextMe app is active — but there is no direct Wi-Fi connection to be found — it will activate the Open Garden client, which will seek to establish a peer-to-peer mesh connection with other nearby Open Garden-enabled devices. If successful, TextMe will be able to text and call freely using another device or PC’s cellular, Wi-Fi or wireline connection.

Open Garden Co-founder Micha Benoliel

Right now most people use Open Garden (it has 2 million installs to date) as a way to link  their own devices together, allowing their various gadgetry to take advantage of an optimal shared connection, but Open Garden founder Micha Benoliel said the goal is to achieve the scale necessary to create truly massive crowdsourced networked By partnering with company’s like TextMe, Open Garden can reach that scale.

This might sound terrible unfair if you’re a smartphone user suddenly giving up your 4G connection to a bunch of freeriding text-happy tablet users, but Benoliel said you have to change your mindset. No one is truly unconnected, so everyone will have the opportunity to share their connection at some point whether they’re logged into a coffee-shop Wi-Fi network or connected to a home broadband line. Eventually, though, Open Garden to plans to introduce controls that will allow users to limit how much bandwidth they give up.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What to watch in mobile in 2013
• Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
• What the shift to the cloud means for the future EPG
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution

Put simply, T-Mobile is upending the established business and device distribution models of the U.S. wireless industry, separating the handset from the service. It’s a model that’s thrived in Europe and other countries, but it’s one that’s failed to gain traction in the U.S. except in the prepaid market, namely because U.S. consumers like getting even the most sophisticated high-end phones on the cheap.

Traditionally a U.S. operator sells a device at a steep discount in an effort to lure customers. It doesn’t just write off that subsidy. It makes that money back and then some by charging higher rates for voice and data over a long contract term. It’s a model that’s worked well for big operators like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, turning them into two of the most profitable and highest revenue-generating operators in the world despite the fact that many multinational carriers have far more subscribers.

T-Mobile proposes to reverse the equation with its Value Plans. Customers pay the full cost of their device, either up front or in installments, or bring their own compatible handsets. In exchange, T-Mobile will offer them cheaper rates, in many cases $20 a month cheaper than it would charge for a subsidized phone plan. Do the math: that’s $480 in savings over two years, which in many cases is much more than the up-front discounts operators are offering on subsidized phones (For instance, a Samsung Galaxy S III subsidy on T-Mobile is $350 including rebate). Given that T-Mobile’s subsidized rates are already much cheaper than its major competitors, the savings from T-Mobile’s Value Plans are compounded.

The repercussions of T-Mobile’s strategy will be felt far beyond the point-of-sale and monthly bill, though. If successful, T-Mobile’s elimination of subsidies could have a huge impact throughout the U.S. mobile ecosystem, changing how we value our devices and our relationships with our carriers and handset manufacturers.

• The rise of phone financing: T-Mobile knows that it will take a while for consumers to overcome the sticker shock of a paying full freight for phones. T-Mo CEO John Legere said T-Mobile would implement financing programs that would mitigate those up-front costs. In the example he gave, a customer could get an “iconic smartphone” for $99 down with monthly installments of $15 to $20 for 20 months.  This will look pretty similar to a subsidy plan to most customers – the device payments will just be separate from the service fees on the monthly bill. But operators won’t necessarily be the only ones financing. Handset makers, electronics retailers could offer their own programs.
• Greater portability of handsets between carriers: There will always be restrictions on where you can bring your phone due to huge variation in network technologies used by U.S. carriers. But moving to an unsubsidized model means for the first time consumers can buy their devices and then select their carriers. Keep in mind T-Mobile’s Value Plans are still contract plans (for now), but it offers prepaid plans as wells. By buying their phones up front consumers would have more flexibility in moving GSM/HSPA phones between T-Mobile, AT&T and the growing number of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that use their networks.
• Less carrier control: If your carrier isn’t selling you your device then they should have less say in what services or apps you can use. That could be a simple as avoiding the pre-installed apps carriers load onto our smartphones, but it could also mean that you’re no longer dependent on your carrier to ship you OS upgrades. It will also be more difficult for them to restrict over-the-top services over their networks (read FaceTime) or limit you to their mobile payment services.
• A larger selection of devices: Carriers have always acted as device gatekeepers in the U.S. Until recently, Nokia couldn’t make a dent in the U.S. because it couldn’t strike the right operator deals. Unsubsidized phones mean that vendors can start marketing and selling directly consumers with no carrier middleman.
• Huawei and ZTE could become household names: These two Chinese juggernauts have made some in-roads to the U.S., but they’ve only gotten as far as the carriers have let them. Mostly their U.S. business consists of low-end feature phones or inexpensive carrier-branded smartphones like T-Mobile’s MyTouch. But a vibrant direct-to-consumer market could benefit Huawei and ZTE immensely. Both can make high-end smartphones at low prices, which would be very appealing to consumers paying the full cost of their devices.
• The development of a vibrant phone resale market: Smartphones are expensive and sophisticated devices, but their low subsidized cost in the U.S. has caused us to treat them like throw-away electronics. But if customers are faced with full sticker price of their phones, they would be more inclined to reuse them and sell them to recover their costs, and customers on a budget would be more inclined to buy used and refurbished phones.

Of course, T-Mobile is just one carrier. The other operators have also expressed discontent with the subsidy model, but they aren’t going to give up on it overnight. In fact, they will probably attempt exploit T-Mobile’s big strategy shift for all its worth. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have a huge advantage: they will “sell” the same iPhone for $200 that T-Mobile is asking customers to buy for $650 – that’s a powerful argument.

T-Mobile has a tough job ahead of it convincing customers they will save money and benefit from its model in the long run. If T-Mo succeeds, other carriers will follow its lead, changing the U.S. mobile industry for the better. If it doesn’t, this will be just another noble but failed experiment for the history books.

Feature photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Robert Kyllo; T-Mobile image courtesy of Flickr user swruler9284

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• Takeaways from mobile’s second quarter
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro