For the most part, you have to know the exact username of the person you want to connect with (Snapchat won't tell you if you're wrong). How to find someone: Snapchat is the hardest of all the services to go and find people. While this might sound odd, it has become wildly popular - with young people in particular - because people don't worry about long trails of messages coming back to haunt them. How it works: Snapchat stands out from its rivals because it's intended as an ephemeral service where messages only last for 10 seconds once they're opened. Read the leading stories from the world of business.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Up (It can tell this because Whatsapp, like Viber, uses the number combination of your mobile number as your personal login when you sign up.) How to find someone: Whatsapp will ask to scan your phone contacts list, from which it will see any other Whatsapp users.

(It doesn't access your actual phone account: it just uses the number as an identifier.)

When you download the app, it asks you to create an account, using your phone number as your initial set-up. How it works: Whatsapp is one of the two most popular social messaging services because it's as easy to use for group-messaging (creating a group of friends or contacts and then sending messages between them) as it is for personal one-to-one messages.

Messaging: Text, photos and video messages

So what are the social messaging services you need to know about? What do each of them do and how do you get started with them? Here are the six most popular services used by Irish people.

Viber vs whatsapp vs hangouts caller