Latest news with #messaging


Fast Company
4 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
The outsider advantage: 5 times when working with an agency partner can be a game changer
Foundational initiatives, such as branding, messaging, and creative strategy, are among the most critical and complex efforts a brand or marketing team can undertake for their business. Ironically, they're also the hardest to manage internally. Why? Because internal teams are often too close to the work, too bogged down by day-to-day demands, or too intertwined in legacy thinking to step back and see the big picture. The good news is, you don't have to do it alone. Whether it's tagging in specialists for high-profile projects, seeking out fresh thinking for regular projects, or outsourcing when bandwidth is scarce, organizations of all kinds are using external agency partners to supplement their internal marketing efforts. In fact, of the 82% of Association of National Advertisers (ANA) member brands that have in-house marketing teams, 92% report engaging external partners for certain projects. Subscribe to the Daily newsletter. Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters When the work shapes your company's trajectory for years to come, bringing in the right outside perspective at the right moment might be the most important investment you can make. So, when does it make strategic sense to call in outside reinforcements? Let's take a look at five times when outsourcing makes strategic sense. 1. YOU NEED A BRAND REFRESH OR REPOSITIONING Leaders and brand teams who have grown with the company often have emotional attachments to the current brand. Your logo, tagline, or messaging might feel sacred—even if they no longer serve a strategic purpose—making it difficult to push bold changes or challenge current ways of thinking. Internal politics aside, a brand that doesn't reflect your business creates a disconnect with your audience and undermines credibility and growth. Agencies bring objectivity, fresh energy, challenge assumptions, and distill complexity into clarity, transforming your core values and differentiators into a clear, modern brand that resonates in your market. 2. YOU'RE ENTERING A NEW MARKET OR LAUNCHING A NEW PRODUCT Your people know your existing customer base inside and out, but expanding into new markets means catering to new audiences that have their own set of needs and expectations. If your marketing and sales departments are already stretched thin or focused on current customer priorities, they may be tempted to stick with what they know. But product launches are high-stakes, and applying old frameworks to new markets puts you at risk for missing the mark at a critical moment. Agencies often have broader experience across industries and audiences, which allows them to spot trends, gaps, and positioning opportunities that may be missed internally. They can help tailor messaging frameworks and launch strategies to unfamiliar audiences, providing a valuable point of view as your company grows. 3. YOU NEED CONSENSUS ACROSS DIVERSE STAKEHOLDERS When marketing, sales, product, and executive teams have different visions, it's nearly impossible for internal leaders to accommodate them all without stepping on any toes. Dealing with complex personalities and organizational silos can compound the problem. This kind of misalignment can stall initiatives, muddy up your messaging, and damage internal morale. Worse, it sends mixed signals to your customers, which ultimately erodes trust. Agencies can often say the 'unsayable,' making them excellent facilitators. As a neutral third party, agencies are positioned to gather all stakeholder input and build consensus by translating competing priorities into a unifying strategy without being tied to internal dynamics. 4. THE PROJECT REQUIRES SPECIALIZED EXPERTISE advertisement Even the best internal marketing and brand teams can't do everything. For many organizations, it's not realistic to expect in-house capabilities to incorporate niche skill sets like strategic naming, identity systems, user experience, or persona development. When companies attempt to do it all—especially when they don't have the right staff in place—they're more likely to see subpar results, slower timelines, and team burnout. Working with an external partner gives you immediate access to a collection of seasoned experts: Strategists, designers, writers, and project managers who have all done the work before, at scale. These specialized skill sets allow foundational projects to progress efficiently without sacrificing quality or depth. 5. YOU'RE FACING TIGHT TIMELINES OR LIMITED RESOURCES When your marketing resources are already maxed out, finding time for foundational work becomes impossible. Strategic projects get sidelined, fall behind, or launch half-baked due to a lack of time or focus. The result? You're missing critical windows to launch and leaving revenue on the table. And let's not forget the overhead cost of dragging out a six-week project for six months. Agencies have dedicated resources and focused timelines, so they can get quality, insightful work done within a faster timeline. They're built to scale and prioritize specific initiatives, allowing you to meet critical deadlines without overburdening your internal staff or sacrificing other priorities. OPEN THE DOOR TO A SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP Once you recognize that your team may not be best positioned to take the lead on certain projects—whether due to lack of capacity, objectivity, or specific expertise—the next step is to start laying the groundwork for an effective agency partnership. Before you start exploring potential partners, take a moment to internally align on the scope of your needs and what success looks like. When you're ready to engage, keep these tips in mind: • Clearly define what kind of help you need so you can communicate the project and the type of support you're looking for. • Look for an agency whose experience aligns with your challenge. Also consider those with diverse portfolios, as they often bring useful perspectives from other industries. • Prioritize fit. Beyond credentials, look for cultural compatibility and communication styles that mesh well with your team. • Collaborate early. Bring agency partners in while the challenge is still taking shape—they can often help frame the problem (and solution) more clearly. Whether you're preparing for a rebrand, gearing up for a product launch, or simply acknowledging that your team needs extra support, don't wait until you're in over your head to reach out. Proactive relationship-building gives you a bench of ready partners that you can call when the moment strikes.


Android Authority
4 days ago
- Android Authority
Beeper's all-in-one messenger updated with better encryption and paid perks
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR The all-in-one messaging app, Beeper, is getting new security features that enhance chat encryption. It also adds new paid 'Plus' and 'Plus Plus' tiers with features such as message scheduling, incognito mode, and multiple accounts for the same apps. However, there's still no mention of iMessage support, which was abandoned in late 2023 after Apple repeatedly shot down Beeper's efforts. If you juggle multiple messaging apps and have ever tried to search for a solution to consolidate them, you might have stumbled upon Beeper. It is also known as the app that attempted to break through Apple's walled garden, allowing non-Apple users to send blue-bubble texts from an Android device. Although Beeper failed to achieve a permanent solution to the Apple problem, it has handled the consolidation part well and is now building upon it to bring better security to chats, along with some premium features. Beeper recently announced it was overhauling the tech stack for more secure chats. While it previously relayed messages from multiple apps through an online interface called Beeper Cloud, the new app now connects directly to individual messaging apps. In essence, that allows messages protected with end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all messaging platforms that inherently support it. In its previous version, Beeper supported encryption for select messengers, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. However, messages would undergo two stages of encryption and decryption: first, when the message was sent from the Beeper app to the cloud bridge, and then again at the bridge before it was sent to the particular app's servers. The new update cuts the extra step in between, sending messages directly to the respective apps. In addition to the updated chat relay, Beeper is introducing a premium model with extra perks. Beeper Plus starts at $9.99 and introduces features such as: support for up to three accounts from the same app, message scheduling and reminders, Incognito mode to view messages without sending read receipts or appearing online, voice note transcriptions, custom app icons, and the ability to add up to ten accounts, up from five on the free version. Another 'Beeper Plus Plus' tier costs $49.99 a month and removes limits on the number of accounts. Beeper Additionally, as a perk to the existing Beeper users, earlier free-tier users will be able to add up to 12 accounts for free. Meanwhile, those who previously paid $10 to get early access to Beeper before it went completely free in March 2023 will now be eligible for lifetime free Beeper Plus access. However, there is no mention of iMessage support returning, and we can assume the folks behind the chat app have laid the topic to rest after open-sourcing its iMessage bridge in December 2023 and later being acquired by Automattic. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.


The Verge
5 days ago
- The Verge
Beeper is getting some upgrades.
Posted Jul 17, 2025 at 12:18 AM UTC Beeper is getting some upgrades. The highlights: Beeper is 'gradually' deprecating Beeper Cloud in favor of connecting directly to other messaging networks, and there's a new Beeper Plus subscription tier with some useful features. You can get an idea of the updates in bento box below or read all the details in Beeper's blog post.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Beeper's all-in-one messaging app relaunches with an on-device model and premium upgrades
Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more. Now owned by maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app has almost entirely integrated with competitor which Automattic also acquired the year prior for $50 million. With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn, and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). On Mac computers only, Beeper can also connect users with their iMessage chats, though Apple has shut down this access in prior versions. The overall goal, according to Automattic, is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping those chats secure. The app previously first connected with Beeper Cloud before communicating with the messaging network, said Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria. While that system remains the default, users will now have the option of switching to Beeper on device, which will see the app connecting directly to the messaging network and skipping the middleman. 'That ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,' Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the app's relaunch. Whether the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, remains to be seen. 'We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are OK with this,' Bagaria said. 'Others, we have not really heard from much.' To stave off any potential shutdowns by messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models of the first-party apps whenever possible. For example, if Telegram is showing ads, those ads will be shown in Beeper, too. In addition, EU regulations requiring that messaging platforms be interoperable could put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper's alone. Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an option to upgrade to a new $9.99 per month premium plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect with 10 messaging services instead of just the five that free users have access to. In addition, Plus subscribers have the option to schedule messages to send later, can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so they don't feel pressured to respond immediately, access multiple accounts per network, view AI voice note transcriptions (processed via OpenAI's Whisper model with user consent), and swap out their app icon for a custom version. An even higher tier, Beeper Plus Plus, which starts at $49.99 per month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of businesses or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a discounted price of $99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $499 per year for Beeper Plus Plus.) After Automattic acquired Beeper, the company combined its team with to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday's relaunch, those apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as only a few smaller features remain to be ported over. Eventually, Automattic's latest acquisition, the personal CRM Clay, which may be later rebranded), will also be integrated with Beeper, though it will remain a stand-alone app. 'It will mostly be built on top of the Beeper platform — it'll stay complimentary,' Bagaria said. 'Clay is an amazing app [as it] works today. Then, with Beaver, it can just ingest more interactions and data, which will make it like 2x to 10x better. Once that is done, I'm sure Clay can be a very powerful product.' Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from A small portion of those who are still using are now being offered the option to migrate to Beeper, since it has added the on-device technology, which they prefer. Bagaria said there may still be some remaining issues around reliability when moving to the on-device model, but those are being worked out as edge cases pop up. At some later point, Beeper Cloud will be deprecated once the company is sure the on-device model is capable of being everyone's daily driver. Further down the road, Beeper aims to make its data available to other companies, with user permission and controls to protect privacy. For instance, an MCP (model context protocol) Beeper one day could let users connect to chat apps via Claude or ChatGPT to ask it things like 'summarize all my important messages from this evening.' Those developments will take some time, as Bagaria says he's also a 'very privacy-conscious user,' and would want a solution that's very transparent about what data is accessed and when, and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, perhaps. 'We also don't want to have server farms where we have models trained on your data. That's a complete no-no,' he said.


TechCrunch
5 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Beeper's all-in-one messaging app relaunches with an on-device model and premium upgrades
Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier, and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more. Now owned by maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app has now almost entirely integrated with competitor which Automattic also acquired the year prior for $50 million. With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn, and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). On Mac computers only, Beeper can also connect users with their iMessage chats, though Apple has shut down this access in prior versions. Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper The overall goal, according to Automattic, is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping those chats secure. The app previously first connected with Beeper Cloud before communicating with the messaging network, said Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria. While that system remains the default, users will now have the option of switching to Beeper on device, which will see the app connecting directly to the messaging network and skipping the middleman. 'That ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,' Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the app's relaunch. Whether or not the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, remains to be seen. 'We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are OK with this,' Bagaria said. 'Others, we have not really heard from much.' Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper To stave off any potential shutdowns by messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models of the first-party apps whenever possible. For example, if Telegram is showing ads, those ads will be shown in Beeper, too. In addition, EU regulations requiring interoperable messaging platforms could put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper's alone. Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an option to upgrade to a new $9.99 per month premium plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect with 10 messaging services instead of just the five that free users have access to. In addition, Plus subscribers have the option to schedule messages to send later, can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so they don't feel pressured to respond immediately, access multiple accounts per network, view AI voice note transcriptions (processed via OpenAI's Whisper model with user consent), and swap out their app icon for a custom version. An even higher tier, Beeper Plus Plus, which starts at $49.99 per month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of businesses or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a discounted price of $99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $499 per year for Beeper Plus Plus.) Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper Following Beeper's acquisition by Automattic, the company combined its team with to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday's relaunch, those apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as only a few smaller features remain to be ported over. Eventually, Automattic's latest acquisition, the personal CRM Clay which may be later rebranded), will also be integrated with Beeper, though it will remain a standalone app. 'It will mostly be built on top of the Beeper platform — it'll stay complimentary,' Bagaria said. 'Clay is an amazing app [as it] works today. Then, with Beaver, it can just ingest more interactions and data, which will make it like two to 10x better. Once that is done, I'm sure Clay can be a very powerful product.' Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from A small portion of those who are still using are now being offered the option migrate to Beeper, since it has added the on-device technology, which they prefer. Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper Bagaria said there may still be some remaining issues around reliability when moving to the on-device model, but those are being worked out as edge cases pop up. At some later point, Beeper Cloud will be deprecated once the company is sure the on-device model is capable of being everyone's daily driver. Further down the road, Beeper aims to make its data available to other companies, with user permission and controls to protect privacy. For instance, an MCP Beeper one day could let users connect to chat apps via Claude or ChatGPT to ask it things like 'summarize all my important messages from this evening.' Those developments will take some time, as Bagaria says he's also a 'very privacy-conscious user,' and would want a solution that's very transparent about what data is accessed and when, and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, perhaps. 'We also don't want to have server farms where we have models trained on your data. That's a complete no, no,' he said.