The limitations of the most common instant messaging tools can be a hindrance for a large part of their users. They range from the impossibility of sending messages only to certain profiles within the same group to security and privacy issues. Who hasn't been annoyed by a social network showing ads about a product that has been mentioned in another app?
These are limitations and the price to pay for using these tools for most of their users. But this resigned reality changes when the users are, precisely, a community of IT executives with more than a thousand members. It was three years ago when LiceoTIC, this ecosystem of IT managers, was born. They soon detected that Whatsapp did not satisfy their needs, especially by not allowing the segmentation of conversations within the same group. This situation and nonconformity were the germ of Xattering, which aims to become the "definitive app" for communication.
"The origin of everything was to create an app for communication that allowed channels within groups," explains Jordi Damià, who leads the technology consultancy that developed the application, Setesca. To this initial purpose, the promoters have been adding functionalities, until achieving the final result: Xattering, which combines instant messaging functions with social network uses similar to Twitter and now X, in addition to professional utilities in the style of Slack and Infojobs.
The promoters of the app resist using techniques to attract users based on "generating happiness by providing stimuli of relative added value but with great attraction capacity"The app, developed between Barcelona and Girona and launched at the end of 2023, brings together these three functions starting with that of a social network, through a public group in which users can post comments or opinions and reply to each other. Unlike other networks, the app Catalan offers various thematic channels to which users can subscribe, based on their interests. The channels range from science and technology to culture, sports, and fashion, explains Damià.
In addition to this public group that acts as a social network, users can interact through messages, also through groups, as in other applications. With a particularity: within a group, channels can be created, so that conversations can be segmented based on the information of interest. The utility? Both professional and everyday: a work group segmented by departments; a group of parents from a school distributed by classes; one for cultural proposals classified according to whether one is more into cinema, theater, museums, or doesn't want to miss anything. All complemented with professional identity and community functions, as it allows connecting with people depending on their sector, job position, company, or also hobbies.
The app now has about 4,000 users, gaining an average of about 500 people per month, to an international audience. "It is available in Catalan, Spanish, and English, and we are considering offering it also in Chinese," highlights Damià. Now they will step on the accelerator in this area, especially looking for influencers, although far from the profiles that usually fill social networks and generate "relative added value content."
Xattering wants to demonstrate that, "from Catalonia, we are capable of putting a tool on the market that can compete with any of the big ones""We want an application that generates real added value for its users and for society, and we want it to gain users because of this content," highlights Damià. With this objective, their influencers are from fields as unusual in this collective as engineers, scientists, and professionals specialized in other fields. In addition, they are studying collaborating with institutions such as universities, to reach more users with this profile. "The great challenge we have is content," he concludes.
In this sense, the promoters of the app resist using the techniques that social networks usually resort to, which are mainly based "on generating happiness and well-being for the user by providing them with stimuli of relative added value but with a lot of attraction capacity. On the contrary, the reasons with which they want to attract users to Xattering are "its utility and the added value it provides", according to Damià. To this end, they control and veto the dissemination of content such as fake news or opinions that incite hatred, applying artificial intelligence filters.
The app is and will remain free, according to Damià, who anticipates that they plan to include advertising when it has the appropriate volume of users. "In no case will we sell our users' data," he guarantees. In fact, he considers privacy, as well as security, fundamental. To ensure it, it has its own encryption system and encrypted connectivity protocols. These elements have represented a large part of the investment that Setesca has allocated to creating the app, which the company declines to specify due to ongoing conversations with some companies that have shown interest in Xattering.
The also founder of Setesca does not rule out the sale of the app in the future, although he is committed to first increasing its size. Its growth will be accompanied by an increase in the team focused on the development and promotion of Xattering, which now has about ten people. "What I would like is for this to be the reference social network promoted from Catalonia," proclaims Damià. "We are capable of putting a tool on the market that can compete with any of the big ones," he assures. And this is due to having talent and an ecosystem that facilitates the development of these products, according to him: "We lack the endogamy that other places have; here we are not used to prioritizing our own. In the end, the market ends up deciding what happens, and we are willing to play."
Add The New Barcelona Post as your preferred Google source for free
Stay informed with the latest news.
