Topic: Messaging
Facebook Messenger now has 1.2 billion users, its second messaging app to hit the milestone (Apr 12, 2017)
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Facebook’s business model for Messenger won’t be payments and commerce but advertising – Recode (Apr 11, 2017)
This isn’t a huge surprise – on the one hand, we’ve already seen Messenger start to introduce ads, and on the other though there’s been some payments and commerce activity within Messenger it’s been clear for some time that it wouldn’t be a major money spinner for Facebook. But it’s interesting to hear this straight from David Marcus, who runs Messenger, because Facebook had been at least a little more opaque on this topic in the past. It’s also been increasingly evident that Facebook has been looking for more places to squeeze ads as it reaches ad load saturation in the core product, and Messenger is an obvious place to do that. But a messaging app is also the place where advertising feels most invasive and least native, because it gets in the way of your most personal conversations with the people you care about most. That’s a risk, and Facebook is going to have to tread carefully here to avoid turning off users as it pushes ads in Messenger. (Incidentally, it’s worth noting that Facebook has just announced a group payment feature, so even though payments aren’t going to be a source of revenue or profits, as this article says they’re nevertheless an important feature of Messenger.)
via Recode
Facebook launches stories to complete its all-out assault on Snapchat – The Verge (Mar 28, 2017)
We’ve known this was coming for a while, but there are a couple of extra wrinkles here. First up, let’s get the obvious out of the way – yes, this is another example of Facebook copying Snapchat, although at this point it’s also copying itself, specifically with regard to the presentation of Stories within the Facebook app, which is very similar to what it already does on Instagram. The good news is that it’s avoided the heavy-handedness that characterized its launch of the Stories equivalent My Day in Messenger and to a lesser extent the equivalent Status feature in WhatsApp – this feature is more subtle and slots in at the top of the app a la Instagram, which should lead to less of a backlash from users. One of the weirdest new features here, though, is a new direct message feature, which is an odd Google-like doubling up on messaging given the existence of the Messenger app. There are some other unique features, but several of them feel different for difference’s sake rather than being valuable or more appropriate for the Facebook setting than Instagram, and I’d expect at least some of them to make it into Instagram Stories in time. To take a step back, though, this is an entirely logical next step given the success of Instagram Stories: the latter has over 150 million users out of a monthly active user base of 600 million, while Facebook has a total user base three times that size, meaning it could bring the feature to many more people. And of course, in the process it’s likely to further dent Snapchat’s growth, which continues to be one of the biggest question marks over its long-term trajectory.
via The Verge
Facebook Messenger update helps you keep tabs on your friend’s location – Mashable (Mar 27, 2017)
Google introduced its own location-sharing feature last week, but Facebook’s is far more limited – it works within the context of a Messenger interaction, and only for an hour at a time, which feels a good bit less prone to accidental over-sharing. It also feels more useful in the messaging context, where you’d be likely to share messages with someone about meeting up, than in a Maps app, which might mean dipping out of a conversation to check the location (even if it might be useful when meeting at a new spot). As I mentioned last week, it’s interesting to see location sharing making a comeback when both Google and Facebook had previously backed away from this kind of thing over privacy concerns – that suggests a certain confidence over privacy issues that wasn’t there a few years ago, although both companies still seem to be approaching this more narrowly than in the past.
via Mashable
Google details Talk transition, SMS removal for Hangouts, other G Suite changes – 9to5Google (Mar 24, 2017)
This has been a heck of a long time coming – Google’s various messaging apps have been a confusing mess for ages now, and it’s good to see some rationalization of the portfolio and a bit more clarity about which bits will survive and what they’ll be used for. SMS-style messaging now belongs in the Messages app, which doesn’t have an equivalent on the desktop, while the ages-old Google Talk will finally be retired in favor of Hangouts, which will carry over some but not all of its functionality, with the rest going away. Some users will no doubt be annoyed at some of the lost functionality, but on the whole this should be a good thing for users. Of course, there is still Google Voice, which combines elements of services also found in Hangouts and Messages, so this doesn’t clear things up completely.
via 9to5Google
Facebook Messenger rolls out mention alerts and message Reaction emoji – TechCrunch (Mar 23, 2017)
With all the fuss about Facebook cloning Snapchat features, it’s worth remembering that not everything Facebook adds to its products is a copy of Snapchat, and this is a good example of adding features that owe more to Facebook’s core product than anyone else’s app. Given the backlash against the My Day feature added recently, it’s somewhat brave of Facebook to add yet more features (and potentially clutter) to Messenger, but these features look like they’ll add value too. And perhaps help to distract from the negative response against My Day.
via TechCrunch
WhatsApp brings back text Status it replaced with Stories – TechCrunch (Mar 16, 2017)
My Techpinions column today argues that Facebook has recently been trying too hard to force new features on users, and needs to tone things down. That’s mostly been the case in the Facebook-branded apps, but this WhatsApp change a while back was another example of replacing something users liked with something Facebook wanted them to use. The good news here is that the backlash wasn’t nearly as bad as with last week’s My Day launch in Messenger, and the company is already rolling back the change while preserving the new feature as well. It’s interesting, though, that both My Day and this Status change in WhatsApp were essentially clones of the Snapchat Stories feature which had previously worked so well for Facebook in Instagram. This cloning has been a story for some time, but the way Facebook is now pushing it on users is starting to backfire, which is a particular shame because the Instagram version was handled so well and has performed well too.
via TechCrunch
Google’s Allo app can reveal to your friends what you’ve searched – Recode (Mar 14, 2017)
Now that I’ve finally got around to writing this up, it appears Google has patched the specific issue highlighted in this piece, but it’s still worth talking about for a couple of different reasons. For one, anytime you bring a virtual assistant into an existing conversation between two or more human beings, there’s a tension between the bot knowing as much as possible about each participant and using that to be helpful on the one hand, and avoiding exposing personal information about the participants on the other. Google appears to have screwed that up here in a way that could have been damaging or embarrassing for users, though it has now been patched. Secondly, this kind of thing can only happen when you collect and keep enormous amounts of data on your users in the first place – a company that neither collects nor retains such data in a profile could never expose it. It’s clear that Google didn’t intentionally do so here, but it was able to do so anyway because of its business model. Competitors such as Apple might argue that not collecting such data, or keeping it secured on a device rather than in the cloud, would make it impossible for a cloud service to share it with others. We’re going to have to work through lots more of these scenarios in the years to come, and the competition between companies that strictly preserve privacy and those that use personal data to improve services will be a critical facet of that evolution.
via Recode
Messenger just became the latest Facebook app to launch a Stories feature – Recode (Mar 9, 2017)
This feature has been in testing since September, but is now rolling out globally. As I’ve said previously, Facebook has done much better in cloning Snapchat successfully since it stopped trying to recreate the entire app and focused instead on features, with Instagram Stories being the standout example. It’s now rolling out Stories in various ways in its separate apps, with Messenger second to go global, and the core Facebook app likely coming next. And why not? Though I think it’s a little distasteful to see Facebook copying Snapchat so blatantly, it certainly appears to be working, and taking a feature used by a competitor with 160 million users and making it available to ten times that many seems entirely logical.
via Recode
As Messenger’s bots lose steam, Facebook pushes menus over chat – TechCrunch (Mar 3, 2017)
When Facebook and Microsoft first launched their respective chat bot strategies just under a year ago, I was skeptical – I argued that chat bots have very limited applicability and were ill-suited to the kind of broad app-replacement approach both companies were pushing. What we’ve seen since is a continued re-thinking of Facebook’s vision for bots, which has steadily pushed it in the direction of becoming very similar to interaction mechanisms we already have, whether in apps or mobile websites. As such, the unique value of a messenger-based interface is being eroded almost to zero, and the whole value proposition is being undermined. I don’t think this is the wrong way to go, necessarily – there will still be some interactions for which an app or site-like interface within messaging has some value – but this is further evidence that the original vision for chat bots in messaging apps was overblown. And of course that the idea that these bots would replace apps in a broad way was overblown too.
via TechCrunch
Android Messages will be the new default texting app Google wants you to use – The Verge (Feb 24, 2017)
There are two separate stories here – firstly, a reminder that Google has two separate messaging apps on Android, and it’s still actively pushing both; and secondly, that Google is doubling down on its commitment to the RCS standard and working with carriers and device makers to spread its use on Android. The former is a long-standing story: Google has always had several different apps for the same use case on its devices, a problem that only gets worse when OEMs and carriers add their own. To some extent, though, this standardization around RCS should help with the OEM / carrier side of that, by consolidating the SMS apps into a single standard Android app. But this is also about the richer features enabled by RCS, which is a telecoms-driven standard for richer messaging which is always at least several years behind the feature set offered by third party messaging apps at any given point in time. This is Google’s effort to create an equivalent to iMessage, but one which is far more open and inclusive than iMessage itself is, for better or worse. Google doesn’t control the standard, which is basic in its functionality, and that makes it a tough differentiator for Android, but it may be the best Google can do in this space.
via The Verge
TransferWise launches international money transfers via Facebook – Reuters (Feb 21, 2017)
This is a fascinating confluence of a couple of different things – mobile money transfers and Facebook’s bot strategy. Facebook already offers money transfers directly through Messenger, but only in the US, while it began pushing bots in Messenger early last year without much success. It appears TransferWise, a young but successful European money transfer provider, is leveraging the bot platform in Messenger to enable mobile money transfers between multiple additional countries. As far as I can tell, the bot side of things is incidental – this is really about leveraging the network that exists on Messenger for painless payments, and a bot happens to be the mechanism. In that sense, it’s very similar to the iMessage integrations for payment providers Apple offers in iOS 10 – this is mostly about adding a financial layer to existing interactions.
via Reuters
Facebook is giving WhatsApp the Snapchat treatment, too – Mashable (Feb 20, 2017)
Yet another use for Facebook’s very successful cloning of Snapchat’s Stories feature in Instagram, this time coming to WhatsApp. This is also another feature-level attempt to take share from Snapchat, which again seems to be what’s finally working for Facebook, in contrast to the whole-app approach it once favored. In this case, Facebook is ditching the Stories name and instead putting this feature in the Status slot in WhatsApp, but it looks like the format is very much the same.
via Mashable
Snapchat’s Streaks Drive Usage But Perhaps Not Ad Viewing – Bloomberg (Jan 30, 2017)
I changed the headline here both to capture the main point of the article and to avoid a different connotation with the word “streaker”, which appears in the original. Teenagers in particular, but also some young adult users, work hard to keep “streaks” of activity between themselves and friends on Snapchat alive as long as possible, much as Apple Watch users might try to keep a stand or move streak alive. But the Snapchat behavior verges on obsessive or addictive, and much of the actual sharing between friends ends up becoming meaningless as user post for the sake of posting. Snapchat deliberately encourages this kind of behavior, and it drives usage of the app, but it doesn’t necessarily drive meaningful engagement, which is technically something different. Those users aren’t necessary spending emotionally significant time in the app, and they’re not necessarily looking at the parts of the app where they’re likeliest to see ads. When Snap makes its IPO filing public, digging for signs of this disparity between usage time and real engagement with content and ads is going to be key. It’s really the Discover and other content tabs rather than the one-to-one sharing features that will drive ad viewing and revenue, and Snap needs to be transparent about where users are actually spending time.
via Bloomberg
Facebook is testing News Feed-style ads inside Messenger – Recode (Jan 25, 2017)
It looks like Facebook has finally caved and started testing what are effectively banner ads within Messenger on a limited scale. The closest parallel is the right rail ads on Facebook’s desktop site, because almost all the other ads Facebook shows across both the core product and Instagram are essentially native – that is, they borrow the format of the content itself, and Facebook has never done plain old banner ads on mobile at all. This is just a test, but it’s certainly starting to feel like Facebook is pushing up against the limits of what consumers will bear when it comes to ad load. Though it’s been warning that ad load was going to near saturation in 2017, it doesn’t seem to have quite given up on finding yet more places to show ads, and this feels like one of the least inspired efforts we’ve seen from Facebook so far. I’m very curious to see if the test ends up making it into the finished product, but ads in communication services are notoriously tough – they get in the way of the user, and feel far more invasive than in other settings, especially on mobile. I’d hope that Facebook would think long and hard before pulling the trigger on releasing this to its broader base.
via Recode
WhatsApp ‘enterprise’ platform for businesses already in app – Business Insider (Jan 12, 2017)
The reporting here is based on a Twitter account that claims to be looking into WhatsApp’s code to find hints about what the app’s future business features might look like. Facebook has already said it wants to take WhatsApp in a similar direction to Messenger, with more hooks for businesses to communicate with users manually and through bots, and these would appear to be early signs of that happening in practice. WhatsApp is a challenging property for Facebook in this respect, because it has always eschewed advertising, and anything that smacks of that direction will likely be poorly received by its users, so Facebook is going to have to tread even more carefully than usual as it pursues this strategy. On the other hand, Facebook didn’t spend $22 billion to buy WhatsApp just to shut off its only revenue stream – this was always inevitable.
via WhatsApp ‘enterprise’ platform for businesses already in app – Business Insider
Facebook is testing a clone of Snapchat stories inside Messenger – The Verge (Sep 30, 2016)
Yet another experimental attempt by Facebook to recreate a Snapchat feature, this time within Messenger, and only in Poland. Following two early attempts to recreate Snapchat in totality in its own new apps, much of Facebook’s Snacphat cloning in 2016 has come through both features within other apps and more experimental approaches, launching new features or apps in single countries, rather than making a big global announcement. This seems smart, given Facebook’s history in this space, many of its attempts having fallen flat.
via The Verge