Mobile messenger Tango is seeking to roll out a massive standalone application that will boost its user power which is in excess of over 250 million, generate income and create more jobs for its developer and engineers.
Tango Music Pix
Already, Tango has successfully rolled out its flagship standalone app called Tango Music Pix. This application allows users to make slideshows that will be played in their music players. The slideshows are borne from Tango photos that the users capture and share across the social media. The sharing is not limited to Tango but can extend to Facebook and Twitter.
Advantages of Standalones
It helps to separate a mainstream application from a dedicated messenger and Tango knows better. Facebook did this successfully earlier this year. While Tango does not want to be seen aping Facebook, it wants the audience and the entire market to believe that its developers are creative and its managers are innovative.
Tango envisages its new standalone application will run faster than the original Tango platform since it will have less bugs and will have dedicated usage. It will also enable Tango engineers to target a specific niche of users rather than general ones served by the main app.
History
Standalones have a history of gaining momentum at the initial launch but as time progresses they start sinking below the chart of top apps. Tango Vice President in charge of Strategy Chi-Chao Chang is well aware of this and acknowledged that sustaining the customer interests in a standalone app will be difficult. Ironically, Tango has not indicated interest in monetizing Music Pix despite it doing so well in the market.
Tango will have to find a way of distinguishing itself from the rest of the market players given the competition is stiff. For instance, Facebook rolled out Paper and Slingshot and has recently bought WhatsApp and Moves. The brains behind these developments are a group of engineers called Facebook Creative Labs. They build new software from scratch and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is proud of them. But the man at the Silicon Valley can no longer sit pretty as Chi-Chao Chang, Tango Vice President in Charge of Strategy also assembled his own team of developers under the Tango Labs fraternity, the game can only go a notch higher.
Still, other players like LinkedIn and Path have joined the bandwagon of making a standalone messaging application.
More in the Pipeline
Tango recently revealed that it is still working on other applications but did not specify lest it lets out a secret strategy to its competitors.
Tango Music Pix is free to download and install from both Apple Stores and Android Stores. This is a limited coverage in terms of the platform, but definitely a great starting point. As Tango tests the waters with remarkable success, it is expected to release later versions that will be compatible with Blackberry and Windows mobile operating systems.
The main challenge now is for Tango to make sure that its standalone takes off well and maintains the momentum of retaining existing users and gaining new ones.
Related ItemsTango
