SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cola announced today the launch of their Bubble Development Kit, or BDK. The Cola Bubble Development Kit is a toolset for creating interactive live messages that live natively inside the Cola Messenger app. Each Cola Bubble is designed to bring app-like interactivity and rich functionality directly into person-to-person and group text conversations.
Bubbles are built through the BDK using JavaScript and a Cola-adapted version of Facebook’s React Native, a framework for building native apps in JavaScript on multiple platforms. With the release of the BDK, Cola is now a fully-formed “Messaging OS” that allows third-party developers to expand the range of interactive bubbles within the Cola app. And because bubbles are written in JavaScript, any developer with experience in front-end Web development can create their own bubble quickly and simply.
“Cola was always envisioned as more than ‘just another messaging app’, it’s an extensible platform that empowers developers to build their own vision for the future of messaging,” said David Temkin, CEO and co-founder of Cola. “In just a few months since we launched Cola, we’ve seen every industry titan put forth their own vision of the future of messaging – everything from intelligent bots to messages written in invisible ink. What we have not seen yet is a clear commitment to enabling developers to shape the future of messaging in a way that offers open and extensible interactivity.”
As a tool, the BDK will provide people and organizations with a complete solution to develop and deploy Cola Bubbles to end-users. By leveraging the BDK, developers can create interactive Cola Bubbles that deliver new user experiences as simple as live score updates — or as sophisticated as real-time collaboration and coordination within a group message with any number of participants.
Within the Cola app, each bubble runs in a sandboxed, secure container that’s built on Facebook’s React Native engine. This allows developers to build bubbles using familiar web technologies; but by steering clear of native code (via XCode) and slow and awkward WebViews, Cola bubbles deliver native-level performance, interactivity, and capabilities. In addition to the React Native component library, Cola Bubbles can also call external services/APIs and support APIs that are specific to Cola messaging: conversations, participants, and notifications.
Cola already has thousands of developers signed up and ready to begin development of their own Cola Bubbles and, prior to its public launch, the BDK was instrumental in the creation of Cola’s first third-party bubble from partner The Weather Channel. Cola’s own developers have used the BDK to build four new bubbles available in the app today: UberConference, FlightStats, Giphy, and YouTube.
Cola Bubbles are written in JavaScript. To run them in the Cola app on an iPhone, developers use Cola’s “Bubbler” packaging tool on a Mac. Then, the output of Bubbler can be copied to Cola on an iPhone in one of two ways:
- Via WebDAV (when enabled for development, the Cola app acts as a WebDAV server; mount it on a Mac desktop)
- Via email (send the package to your iPhone and copy the attachment to Cola from Apple’s iOS Mail app).
Once the package has been copied to Cola, the bubble will be listed on the bubble picker along with the built-in bubbles and can be run and tested, as well as debugged remotely.
Developers can edit code for Cola Bubbles using a text editor or IDE of their choice; the Nuclide IDE from Facebook offers specific React Native support. Production bubbles are distributed by Cola.
Cola combines the ease and immediacy of texting, with the precision and interactivity of an app; it is the only messaging app designed specifically for getting things done. Cola Bubbles make it easy to get input from everybody on your thread with a rich, interactive experience that can collect or deliver all the necessary information with a tap.
Cola for iPhone is currently available in the App Store and can be downloaded here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cola-messenger/id1038896138?mt=8
Developers interested in building a Cola Bubble can sign up at http://cola.io/developer.
About Cola
Cola is the world’s first Messaging OS, designed to make texting more convenient and provide users the full functionality of their smartphone without leaving a conversation. Cola is founded by a team of seasoned Silicon Valley veterans. Investors include Tribeca Angels, Naval Ravikant and his AngelList Syndicate, which includes AOL founder Steve Case, Brad Garlinghouse, and other prominent angel investors. Cola is available on iOS in the App Store and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Useful Links:
Website: http://cola.io
iOS App store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cola-messenger/id1038896138?mt=8
