How Kik Survived The Group Messaging Wars And Built A Sweet Mobile App For Controlling TVs

If a consumer mobile fad comes and goes, and you don't play consolidation musical chairs, what do you do next? This is kind of what happened to Kik, a Canadian startup that took off with the explosive growth of its messaging app last year. Amid the hype around messaging, Kik raised $8 million in funding from RRE Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. Not too long after, Kik's rivals Beluga and GroupMe got acquired in some respectable (but not crazy huge) deals by Facebook and Skype last year. Meanwhile, Kik has stayed independent and is charting a completely different course. About two months ago, they launched Clik, a mobile app that lets you control a TV right from your phone. There are a few steps to making it work, but the major plus to Clik is that it doesn't require additional hardware. You point your desktop or smart TV browser at ClikThis.com, which generates a unique QR code (which are two-dimensional barcodes). Then you open the Clik iPhone or Android app, aim the camera at the screen, and the phone syncs to the TV or computer. Once they're connected, you can use your phone like a remote control to play YouTube videos on your TV.

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