4 ms·
Quite honestly, I think Facebooks play to overlay chat ontop of something more addictive was its big win. Then having a mobile app to talk to the same people.
by basch 6y ago
Quite honestly, I think Facebooks play to overlay chat ontop of something more addictive was its big win. Then having a mobile app to talk to the same people.
None of that matters anymore, because Messenger/IG/WA are all mobile apps that most people probably dont chat as much through on a desktop/laptop. But at the time, it gave people a compelling reason to have the messenger product open on screen. Google Talk was similar, being overlayed over Gmail, but google squandered having a Talk bar over the bottom of every google property. Yahoo as well. Yahoo News should have had messenger across the bottom of the screen.
On the mobile front, FB Messenger sort of won out because people started to like iMessage, but there was still a need for a cross platform alternative. I believe Apple could have prevented FB Messenger from being a thing, had they released an Android client along with a browser extension. Apple's best move was releasing iTunes for Windows, something they are scared to repeat, and shouldnt be.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago>On the mobile front, FB Messenger sort of won out because people started to like iMessage, but there was still a need for a cross platform alternative. I believe Apple could have prevented FB Messenger from being a thing, had they released an Android client along with a browser extension. Apple's best move was releasing iTunes for Windows, something they are scared to repeat, and shouldnt be. I wonder what the numbers are on WhatsApp vs FB Messenger, because people of all socioeconomic levels, languages, ages, country, and tech literacy use WhatsApp in my experience, whereas only Americans of a certain age group use FB Messenger.
- sjg007 6y agoWhatsApp is the clear winner since it has always been optimized for very old devices. But it's now a FB product anyway. At some point FB will develop a unified messaging product... maybe in response to antitrust.