"People think it's just an app that says 'Yo,'" Yo founder Arbel told the New York Times. "We like to call it context-based messaging.” Effectively, Yo really is just an app that says 'Yo'. So why has it already been used four million times and attracted $1 million of investment?

The explosion of interest in mobile messaging platforms has prompted heated competition to secure the largest and most loyal global user base. From LINE’s stickers to WeChat’s partnership with Lionel Messi, there’s a race to innovate, and fast.

While WhatsApp wins over the West and WeChat conquers China, messaging app LINE has taken Japan by storm. With 400 million users worldwide, and 52 million in Japan alone, LINE's bright and vibrant customisable stickers are hugely popular – but can they really replace text?

From messaging to social media to a marketplace to browsing the internet, WeChat is the app the does everything. While Western companies and app developers race to unbundle their services into efficient single-purpose apps, WeChat continues to add feature after feature.

The number of teens who voice call on their phones every day dropped 50% between 2009 and 2012. Just 3% of UK Millennials now use the function daily. With texts, iMessage and WhatsApp becoming the preferred method of communication, can audio message app Cord get us talking again?

We receive around 150 emails a day, and spend up to 38% of our time sifting through them all. Sorting, reading and replying to emails has become a daily chore that distracts us from both work and play. Can Google’s smart email client help us manage our online admin?

Nearly 60% of Brazilians feel they aren't spending enough quality time with their family. Stories, fights and gossip were once shared around the dinner table, but now these interactions often happen over Facebook and email. Does the family that WhatsApps together stay together?

In Spike Jonze's Her, protagonist Theodore Twombly converses with his operating system as though she was a real human. And while Her is set in the future, voice user interface is increasingly relevant to the streamlined design modern consumers have grown accustomed to.