Adarsh Dhatt's blog

A new Social media app is emerging, an app that allows instant messaging and live mass group chats, all without the use of either Wi-Fi or cellular connection. This app, Firechat, is labelled as an effective “off the grid” communication system. This messaging is achieved by sending the message, the message then travels using Bluetooth to other Firechat user’s phones and eventually finds its way to the intended user’s phone. In addition to regular chats and chat groups this app allows you to host mass chat groups of up to 10,000 users to share their opinions on topics. This app, although a promising idea, has many flaws. In the growing technological world we live in, nearly everywhere you go there is connectivity available, whether that be through cellular data or Wi-Fi, making the use of this app for the general public to be quite obsolete. The intended use for this app is for when you do not have any connectivity, such as in the wilderness, subway or crowded areas where signals are jammed. However this applies to a very limited use of the application and I do not see it growing into the staple for messaging. However, currently this product has been made useful by the protesters fighting the current issues in Hong Kong. Rumors were heard that cellular connection would be turned off, so protesters began downloading this app to continue conversation regarding the issues (100,000 downloads in 24 hours). Although it is rather successful in this circumstance, that does not give any credibility to future success hypothesis’. This is once again a very limited use of the application as it is a rare circumstance. It is an interesting concept, however, from a business standpoint, for the general public this app serves the same purpose as the countless instant messaging applications already in use.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/firechat-off-the-grid-messaging-app-what-you-need-to-know-1.2784271