But we’ve been stuck with proprietary technologies, and services such as Imo that try to bridge multiple networks have always been gambling with fate. It’s always been clear that everything should be based on open standards, so that we can all use whatever client we choose and chat with anyone we want. The sad thing is, Imo’s problem isn’t new - it’s as ancient as instant messaging itself. As Harik put it to me, “We can’t keep sailing against the wind.” It concluded that the third-party support was, long-term, a hopeless case, and that Imo should refocus entirely on its own network, which has been an element of its offerings for various platforms since early 2012. So Imo’s engineering team got together to decide on a direction. And the company thinks it may need around 10 times as many users as it has now to be a financial success someday. (Harik told me that WhatsApp is “belligerent” in its disinterest in working with something like Imo.) The more popular the new services get, the less likely it’ll be that Imo can continue to grow. Glitches and isolated instances of blocking are one thing, but the future looked even bleaker: The new generation of mobile-focused messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Viber and Line, simply don’t allow third-party apps and services such as Imo to connect at all. Facebook treats third-party messaging clients differently than its own apps, resulting in some messages going undelivered. For instance, Harik told me that Imo can’t update the status message for Google Hangouts, which leads to Imo users looking like they’re offline when they aren’t. In other cases, third-party services work in Imo - but not as well as they could. Imo users, Harik said, assumed that it was Imo’s fault, so the company bore the brunt of their frustration. Without warning, a major network didn’t work in Imo. The trouble started last May, when Skype suddenly started blocking Imo’s access to Skype’s network.

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