Quartz has created a great infographic for Hewlett Packard (aka HP) showing how the multitude of new messaging apps fit into existing business categories. SnapCash and Venmo for banking, Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel and Hinge for dating (carefully daring not to speak the name of the ground breaking Grindr and its sexual subculture off-shoots), etc. Each app is also represented by icons for Secure Messaging and Voice, Dating and Networking, Enterprise Chat, etc. A lot of information artfully presented although far from fully inclusive of the messaging space.

What these apps have in common is that they address most if not all of the driving forces (technical and social) toward #noemail (greater reliance of open collaboration, mobile rather than stationary work spaces, the untamable nuisance of spam replaced by whitelists and other controls, quick and terse interchanges often while in motion, many brief highly interactive exchanges constituting a conversation stream, context appropriate messaging, and highly customizable communications alerts and streams across all devices as desired. in case you’ve forgotten)

Or as Quartz writers creatively describe the situation:

About 25 percent of all life forms on Earth are some kind of beetle. In the App Store, messenger apps are becoming just as prodigious, with new species appearing en masse despite the popularity of Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Skype, and WhatsApp. Nearly 20 successful venture-backed messaging apps hit the market in the last 12 months to acclaim. Some of these­—like “text concierge” Magic—have been properly recognized for their ability to challenge legacy communication giants and blockbuster upstarts alike. The industries and messaging apps at the heart of the disruption battleground are visualized here.

HP/QZ infographic on messaging apps