I was wandering on the internet when I came across an article by Celestine Ezeokoye It’s titled, "African businesses would be better off with Telegram, not WhatsApp". I was so fascinated in reading the article but sleep wouldn’t just allow me because it was already some minutes after 1am and my body was hungry for the bed. Despite all odds, I decided to read the article. So, I carried my laptop and walked all around the house. Something told me from within that reading the article would fulfil my day. Sure, it did!

Hummm...after reading this article I couldn't sleep again because it got me thinking deep. It is like the guy wrote my mind but not just with future anticipations, as he presented, but with reality. Few years ago, I was checking online for messaging apps API application because I felt it would change our way of communication and could open up great opportunities. While still searching, I realised that Whatsapp does not open up its API. That further brought down my thought and shut my line of thought.

Sometime this year, I read a post about WeChat opening up its API and I immediately signed up for it. For over three months, even till now, none of my applications have been approved on WeChat. This is one of the reasons Celestine's post got me fascinated. I got on Telegram website; registered, downloaded the app, created the bot through BotFather and lo and behold, I created my first Telegram app service. I didn't have to be invited by the team of Telegram to discuss why I wanted to write a service on their application; I tell you, WeChat did ask me to give reasons. But as for Telegram, there is no Nigeria factor, where I have to lick someone's ass to get my service running. All I did was to register and my service was up and running.

I like quotes and I am subscribed to quotes handles on Twitter, so I decided to refresh myself with good and quality daily inspirational quotes. I wrote a simple service that delivers between 3 to 5 quotes everyday at random to everybody who adds my bot to his/her Telegram contact. The username of my bot is @MyCitatiBot. Hit the search bar and type in mycitati to join the fun.

I have some interesting things about my service, you don't know when it sends the quotes everyday and you don't know the number of quotes you get (the minimum is 3 and maximum is 5). To make sure that no quote is repeated so you don't get bored, I decided to have arsenal of these quotes. I’ve got over 100,000 quotes to send randomly every day. This has been really interesting and inspiring.

I wish to take the service further by sending marriage tips, fun facts, bible quotes, prayer points and have some people plan their daily devotion through it, like “Complete a bible in a year” series. I can also send birthday greetings to users and build a community through it.

It is interesting to see what can be achieved through this. It is funny why Whatsapp had decided never to bring this kind of fun to its platform. You can never tell the next big thing that is on someone else’s mind that could be implemented on Whatsapp. Anyway, I know there would be business and whatever reasons for it.

Come join me have fun on Telegram @MyCitatiBot, you will be in for surprises.