Eci Handayani

I’ve been saving this thoughts for months (a year) and never actually really finish the post to publish it. I started using Telegram around November 2013 with the thoughts of what makes this any difference that Whatsapp?

First let’s start with the group chat. When i use telegram the first time it only able to hold 100 members, now it increase to 200 members. Do you really have friends upto 200? well, yes! Thanks to Telegram we can all chat in one place now (if you are succeeded in dragging your friends to use it)

Then there’s the secret chat, it can self destruct on your define time. This is one of the highlight feature when telegram launch. What so special about secret chat anyway? It’s the self destruct messages! After you set the time period (e.g. 2 seconds) the message you typed will be missing (or deleted automatically) 2 seconds after your chat partner read that message. Pretty cool right?

Another very useful feature i use a lot is the document sharing. Telegram able to send and receive files. I use it mostly send it to myself. Send it from office PC and i can access it anywhere on my cellphone or my computer at home. Sometimes it goes a lot faster (and practical) than using flash disk.

Not like any other messaging applications, with telegram you can suggest, ask and even complain about the application to its developer team. Since telegram is still developing, they take users needs, requests and complaints seriously. So i guess another plus point for telegram is the user-developer interaction. They can be reach @telegram or @telegramdesktop for win & mac application or web.telegram.org for its web based application.

After using this app for several months it is proven to be lightweight, android resources friendly and dependable for its cloud server. You’re going to need a cellphone number to register and start using this messaging app. Telegram will send text message to your number for activation code the best thing is you can use Telegram on various platform. on windows pc, Mac, ios and even on browser with one cellphone number.

Telegram user interface for android was recently being upgraded so it’s not that similar to whatsapp anymore (yay!) but since it’s using material design from Google, it looks and feels just like Google apps (in this case looking like Gmail and Inbox). I was expecting telegram would create its own user interface rather than using Google but it’s better than looking like whatsapp though :D.

But no matter how great telegram is, in Indonesia people is using what their friends are using (in term of messaging app.) and most of Indonesians are still using whatsapp and/or Blackberry Messenger. And now Whatsapp and Line creating features just like Telegram already did. Like that blue-double-checkmarks which bbm and telegram has it since the beginning. I’m sure Telegram will improve and add their feature and security so that someday it can be the number one messaging application users can depend on. So, have you install Telegram?

p.s Telegram was created by Durov brothers (Pavel and Nikolai). Telegram is using the MTProto which Nikolai Durov invented. Pavel Durov is the one who created VK.com, the biggest social media in Russia. And i am his -die hard- fan <3 <3