Modern people, in order to constantly stay in touch and keep abreast of the latest events, have to use many different services.
Almost everyone has WhatsApp installed on their phone, the morning begins with scrolling through a Facebook feed, and millions of people spend their evenings watching videos of their favourite bloggers on YouTube. These are world famous platforms. But there are a lot of alternatives to popular sites which are at least their equal and often much better.
It’s time to talk about how communication has changed in 2020 and how it is still changing right now. First of all, let’s focus on services that help you stay in touch with friends and family, make new acquaintances and be a part of a huge Internet community.
Messengers
Messengers are perhaps the most convenient tool for quick communication with no frills. If you need to quickly contact another person in a convenient way for both of you, it is best to use an instant messenger rather than trying to do it through a social network or other platform.
Telegram
A confidential messenger with a huge number of features: group chats, audio and video messages, channels, self-destroying messages, sending any files without size limits, and much more.
Users love Telegram for its high speed, minimalist design, availability on different platforms, and lack of ads. But on that last point, the future isn’t clear. The developers have already announced that in the near future, advertising in the messenger will appear, but in limited quantities.
Viber
Viber is one of the most popular instant messengers in the world. It is easy to use, it is economical on battery life, allows you to share media files and is available on most modern platforms. Plus, Viber has really good video and sound quality in audio and video calls, even with a slow internet connection.
Among the disadvantages of the messenger are an overabundance of advertising, not the most effective spam filters, and paid stickers. Telegram, by comparison, has free stickers.
Signal
Signal is considered to be the most secure and confidential messenger out there. Even Elon Musk urged his readers to use Signal in a Twitter message.
The app has a minimalistic interface, no ads, group chats, an audio and video call function, and you can send files and share your location. But the most important feature of Signal is end-to-end encryption. Messages are stored only on the devices of the sender and recipient, not on the server. This ensures complete confidentiality of communication.
Social networks
Social networks have recently become not just tools for communication but full entertainment platforms. Therefore, user requirements for them have changed noticeably.
Tapebook
Tapebook is a social network for conversations and audio podcasts. As the developers themselves say, this is the ideal platform for those who want to discuss the new episode of a TV series with friends, record music together, talk about sports or politics, share their impressions of the book they have read, and much more.
The key feature of Tapebook is podcasts. Any user can record them, and subscribers will see an update in the feed and will be able to listen to them at a convenient moment. Tapebook was originally released for iOS and iPadOS, but an Android app is under active development.
Line
This is more of a messenger than a classic social network. Here you can exchange messages, make calls and so on in the usual way. But in addition to this, there’s also social network functionality — a built-in blog platform, comments, mini-games with in-game purchases, and more.
Among the unique features of the site are Line Pay non-cash payments and a Line Taxi service for calling a taxi directly from the application. At the moment Line Taxi operates only in Tokyo (Japan), Taiwan and Thailand.
WeChat is a colossal application designed primarily for the Chinese market, so of course it’s especially popular there. On the app you can communicate as in a regular messenger, create and maintain public accounts, view web pages directly, make payments, launch entire online stores and much more.
WeChat is the ancestor of the so-called “super-applications”. In other words, those that support applications within a parent application. This opens up wide opportunities for using WeChat in everyday life, but so far its functionality has only been fully realised in China.
MeWe
This social network was originally conceived as an alternative to Facebook, but for a long time did not arouse much interest within the Internet community. However, in 2020 the situation changed. At first, due to the threat of censorship and moderation from the PRC authorities, many Hong Kong users switched from Facebook to MeVe. After that, other users began to use the site.
MeWe focuses on anonymity and privacy, and supports communication by text, voice or video. In general, the site does not differ much from its more well-known alternatives, but the lack of strict moderation and confidentiality have made it very popular in the modern world.
Online dating through video chat roulettes
Anonymous video chats have been and remain one of the best options for finding new acquaintances. They allow you to meet and communicate with interesting people in just a few clicks, without requiring a lengthy registration and account setup.
Chatrandom
This is a popular video chat that lets you search for people by gender and interests. The site is fast, usually pretty good at picking up strangers to chat with, and offers several unique features. For example, there are themed chat rooms, a separate chat with girls, and even a chat for gay users.
Chatroulette
It was once the most popular random chat roulette but even back in 2010, its audience was dispersing to other platforms due to poor moderation. Ten years later, in 2020, the developers finally improved moderation, implemented artificial intelligence to search and filter out inappropriate content, and generally updated Chatroulette. Its former glory is still far away, but gradually the number of users is increasing again.
Video Chat US
An excellent platform for men who want to meet interesting and pretty girls. VideoChat USA connects them exclusively to the opposite gender. This means that on https://videochatusus.com you won’t waste any time talking with other men you’re not interested in.
Also, video chat roulette has a unique moderation system. Each girl confirms her identity during registration, which completely prevents the appearance of fakes and bots on the site.
The video and sound quality of random chat is excellent, even on slower internet connections.
Tinychat
Quite a niche video chat with strangers, the main feature of Tinychat is video broadcasts (or streams). You can’t communicate with other users one-on-one, but you can launch your own video streams, gather an audience of viewers and communicate with them. And for a separate fee, you’ll appear on the main page of the site so that more users see your stream and join it.
Chathub
Quite a simple random chat, where only the choice of the gender of the chat partner and the language of communication is available in search settings. However users love Chathub for its fast performance, fast connections, and a minimalist, modern interface. Chathub doesn’t even have a mobile app, but the mobile version of the site is pretty handy.
Small summary
The Internet is changing very rapidly. Sometimes sites and online platforms that were at the peak of popularity yesterday are now overshadowed by completely new projects.
If you want to keep up with trends and keep your finger on the pulse, follow all these updates and use the online sites that open up the maximum opportunities just for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a messenger, social network or random video chat with strangers, just as long as it fulfils your needs.
