Telecommunications firm, Lets Talk I.T has said it is working on launching Nigeria’s first instant messaging application, Lets Talk before the end of the third quarter of 2022.
Folashade Ayeni, the chief operating officer of the company, made this known during a recent media briefing in Lagos. She said the application was designed by a team of Nigerian software engineers in line with the vision of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for indigenous companies to come into the social media space.
Ayeni said Let’s Talk was created out of a need to meet an Afrocentric demand for messaging platform. “If you look at it, sometime last year in October, October 4 To be precise, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram crashed. No one was able to use those applications because of one thing or the other.
Read also: First Bank partners group to promote female-owned businesses
“Many people lost money, several people were not able to reach families, friends, relatives and do business normally, because a whole lot of people have taken business and relationship to the social media. It crashed for about six hours or so and the reality dawned on us that really, whether it was intentional or not on purpose that we could lose everything,” she stated.
According to her, the company was aiming to collaborate with NITDA, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and other relevant agencies to ensure the success of the application and acceptability by Nigerians.
“So, we thought about owning our social media platform; where Nigerians can have guaranteed communications, with outmost security, which is Nigerian owned and indigenous to us and for us in Africa,” Ayeni stated.
On the unique features of the app, she said it is end-to-encrypted, allows users to listen and share music, video and audio call, 5,000-member group chat, seven-person conference calls and file exchange up to 2GB.
According to her, it also allows for device and cloud caching as well as sharing moments and trends which will give users pleasant experiences.
Ayeni also explained that the application would be in two parts, Lets Talk Basic which would be a free social media platform while there would be a secondary phase that would be on subscription basis.
