Telegram: A Review

What is Telegram?

Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging service. It was created by software developers Nikolai and Pavel Durov in August 2013. Today, Telegram has 200 million monthly active users, and is slowly catching up to WhatsApp (1600 million) and WeChat (1122 million).

Key Features

Telegram is my messaging application of choice because of its many features. This is only possible because their company is user-focused rather than profit-focused.

Accessiblity

Telegram is available as a web application, on desktop and on mobile. This allows users to access Telegram on their phones, or on their laptops, providing additional convenience because of its cross-platform functionality. You can easily access your Telegram account on any device via a 6-digit code sent directly to your phone. Furthermore, Telegram utilises smart searching across your chats, by incorporating Natural Language Processing (NLP) to determine what you are looking for. Other features include being able to mute chats and 'pin' chats which you use often.

Cloud Storage

Besides functioning as a messaging service, Telegram is also great for cloud storage through the use of their "Saved" feature. In fact, I download Telegram in my work laptop during my internship as it makes my work much easier. It is an excellent code repository and data archive as there is no limit to how many files you can store, although they have a limit of 1.5 GB per file. While WhatsApp can be used in a similar manner, they have a limit of 150 MB per file and the files will no longer be accessible after about 1 month. Compared to cloud storage solutions like Google Drive or Dropbox, Telegram is better because it free, has faster upload speeds and is more accessible. Image quality is also not compromised, as there is an option of not compressing the photos.

Social Functions

Groups

No messaging application will be complete without a group function. Telegram goes one step further. With the Supergroup function, you can create a group of up to 5000 people, 100 times of WhatsApp's limit of 50. It is excellent for parties as well, as you can invite people to groups by providing them with an invite link, rather than manually exchanging numbers. This feature proved to be useful during one of my CCA meetups, when the group leader wanted to add all of us into a Telegram group but did not have our numbers.

Administrators

The creator of the group chat can appoint administators, who have the power to add new members and kick members out. They can also set certain rules, such as limiting one message per person per 10 seconds to prevent people from spamming the chat. Within groups, you can enable notifications for replies and mentions, so that even you have muted the group, you can respond only when your attention is needed.

Administrators can also create polls, allowing members to vote on certain topics and it allows for quick decision-making. The "count me in" function helps event organisers determine the best dates for members to meet up by presenting a list of available dates and members can indicate which dates they are free.

Channels

Besides groups, Telegram also has a "Channel" function, which allows individuals to send announcements effectively. Residential College 4 (RC4) where I stay in posts about events in school often and this keeps people subscribed to the channel informed about the latest news. If you are running a business, Telegram Channels can be useful as a marketing tool to promote your products and services.

Fig 2: A reminder from the RC4 announcement channel informing residents about an event!

User Interface

Another key feature of Telegram is its intuitive user interface. The chats you are in are located on the left, while stickers, emojis and GIFs are located on the right. You may already know what emojis and GIFs are. But what are stickers? They are essentially custom-made emojis that can be created by developers and distributed. You can do crazy things like create a sticker of your friends, and compile it in a sticker pack. Dark themes are available in most messaging applications, but what about customised themes? Well, Telegram has that too. Customise the theme to your liking!

Privacy

Telegram cares about about privacy. After WhatsApp was bought over by Facebook, Telegram gained an influx of users who were concerned that Facebook might use their data without their permission. Besides using end-to-end encryption, you can also remotely sign out of accounts, just in case you forgot to sign out of a public computer that you used at the airport! You can also delete messages without trace, and send messages to your contacts using a "secret channel", which require a password to access. To contact someone on Telegram, you do not necessarily need their number; you just simply need their username. These features make Telegram way superior to WhatsApp!

Developer-friendly

Open-Source API

Telegram is open-source and provides their API for free, allowing developers to create integrate customised applications. Key examples would include scheduling messages and creating 'chatbots'. Telegram's bot API is easily accessible and well documented. Using their API, you can create games, "news channels" which scrape popular news websites and collates them, and even chatbots which can help you manage your channels or groups. As a Python developer, one of my very first projects was to create a Telegram chatbot, and all I knew at that time was basic Python and how to make HTTP requests. Some business models are built on the Telegram API, as it allows developers to easily automate tasks such as handling customers and marketing, enabling them to focus on higher value work.

Further Improvements

After listing so many benefits about Telegram, it is hard to imagine how else they can improve. But behind every great service is a great team, and their developers are looking forward to incorporate more features which can benefit their users.

I am actually looking forward them to incorporate payment into their app, much like GrabPay and WeChat. Hopefully they can implement that function too!

Fig. 3: Telegram developers are extremely hardworking and user-centric!

Getting Started

Convinced by my article that Telegram is better than WhatsApp? Join today!

You can also connect with me on Telegram. 😛