Starting this week , to check Facebook messages on your phone , you’llneed to download Messenger , the companionship ’s standalone chat app . This is part of a bigger Facebook strategy to create many standalone peregrine apps . That might make sense for Facebook , but it sucks for you .
That specific change is n’t all forged . Messenger is easy to use than manually tapping around your Facebook app to receive the subject matter inbox . But that ease issue forth at a cost : It takes away choice . You have to download a separate app . campaign messagesout of Facebook ’s chief appforces people to carry two apps on their phones or tablets to have the full Facebook experience .
And that ’s just the beginning .
The great unbundling
Facebook ’s jazzy purchase have been apps , or related to the ship’s company ’s strategy to become King O ’ The Apps . buy Instagram and WhatsApp chip in Facebook power over two staggeringly popular peregrine services . Oculus technologywill almost certainlyfigure into next apps . Facebook has no qualm about cat money at app inauguration because apps are the cornerstone of the caller ’s mobile strategy .
And what it ca n’t acquire , it creates . Failing to contribute Snapchat ’s disappearing photos into under its expansive wing , Facebookreleased a clonecalled Slingshot . An attempt to capitalise on Flipboard ’s potentialyielded Paper , a beautiful app that was ultimately not attractive enough to convert hoi polloi to download yet another Facebook service .
Nobody want to satiate their speech sound with multiple Facebook apps . I was cool with one , and I ’m certain I ’m not alone . Separate apps gobble memory . The more Facebook - spinoff and Facebook - have apps we download , the less room there is for anything else .
This is not an stroke . Facebook ’s unbundling scheme is partially because the primary app is too overpacked to act well on mobile , yes . It ’s also because Facebook wants to eclipse the app ecosystem , and it ’s way easier to do that with a clustering of popular apps than one . Facebook Homemay not have been a bang , but its inherent goal of total phone putsch remains . shuttle you over to Messenger is just the beginning .
It’s only going to get worse
Facebook will colonize your total app collection if possible . That is a just plan for Facebook , the business ! Very smart . Someone believably went to Wharton . But spin out armed service out into as many standalone apps as possible ( and/or buying up the rival ) makes your life a whole heap more annoying .
There ’s the whole retention issue , but that ’s not the freehanded trouble . Even if you get a telephone set with 700 GB just ready to make full up with apps , having to juggle a host of Facebook apps would still make your app experience bad .
Part of the reasonableness Facebook is so successful is because it ’s a one - blockade social mesh . It ’s a good thing that we can annotate on a picture , military post on a wall , and in private substance friend all in one space . raze breastfeed its core note value away . Instead of move there , we ’ll have to spread out four different apps to do what we used to do on one . chip services out to standalone apps will make the Facebook experience more convoluted , not less .
And it ’s not like the apps themselves are very good in the first place . Paper was pretty , but no one used it . Messenger really does n’t want to live ; though it ’s not obnoxious , Facebook could ’ve simplified the process of accessing messages within the main app and called it a day . Slingshot , Poke , and Facebook Camera are all weak . Facebook is pouring imagination into arise non - crappy standalones , when it could be using those resources to improve the timber of its existing app , have it less consuming without break it into pieces . But that is the less lucrative strategy . More apps mean more ad . More apps mean less way for competitors . One matter more apps does not mean ? A right user experience .
No one is forcing anyone to download Facebook ’s apps , but this strategy will impact even the curmudgeonly app user who have already deleted all of Facebook ’s offerings . There are plenty of competitorswho offer similar services . But Facebook is the most prevalent wandering app company . People are watching what it does , and some of those people make apps . Other services are already following Facebook ’s example ; Foursquarerecently split itself in two . If Facebook succeeds at unbundling , it could make an industry - wide ripple result . abruptly we may have Instagram Photo and Instagram Video , two separate apps . Snapchat Stories could get its own app real estate of the realm .
Facebook ’s program could turn into a lucrative and well - trodden path . But it ’s pass to make our app lives a fractured slight incubus .
Image cite : AP Images
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