Earlier this week, Glympse partnered with Samsung to provide location sharing services to users of its ChatON application. We had the opportunity to chat with Glympse co-founder and CEO Bryan Trussel at Mobile World Congress about this new integration and the future of the service. We also caught a small glimpse of the location sharing service’s past.
ChatON wasn’t the first application Glympse partnered with “out of the gate.” The company had previously worked with Verizon Wireless and its unified messaging client. Two weeks ago, the company expanded its support to BlackBerry Messenger and its users as well. Finally, at the beginning of this week, it expanded to ChatON.
ChatON runs parallel to Glympse’s cross-platform strategy
Working on ChatON was “important” for the company to provide the “platform and device integration” that the company is pushing for. ChatON is currently available for Android, Windows Phone, iOS, and BlackBerry, among others. Utilizing this wide reach across a variety of platforms enables Glympse to provide the service to ChatON’s more than 180 million users.
Glympse integration allows ChatON users to share locations with their friends while messaging or from the native Glympse application. This integration will be similar to that within other messaging apps in the future. In fact, Trussel tells us that more messaging apps are planned on being supported in the first half of this year.
Glympse pushes for a “Fast and broad” expansion across the messaging landscape
“We’ll be doing another major partnership at the end of March or the beginning of April, and we’ll have two more at the end of summer.” Trussel also added that Glympse wants to “go as fast and broad as we can” similar to the company’s past integration with automobile manufacturers, including BMW, GM, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volkswagen.
The applications in question are being kept under wraps for now until the integration and deals are complete, but it’s clear that Glympse wants to expand to as many applications and as many platforms as possible. Windows Phone users aren’t being left out in the cold either, at least not by Glympse.
Expansion will start out slowly at first and will gradually accelerate
“We work on Windows Phone,” Trussel told us, “so when our [messaging app partners work on the operating system], we’ll be right there along with them.”
Similar to the aforementioned relationships with the auto manufacturers, the expansion will start out slowly at first and will gradually accelerate, expanding to more applications over time. The three upcoming partnerships are “just the beginning” for the company, and as the messaging space continues to expand, Glympse looks to ride the wave of that expansion with us and become a big part of our everyday conversations.