Mark Zuckeberg, the owner and CEO of the world’s biggest social media platform Facebook, Photo sharing network Instagram and the world’s biggest instant messaging app Whatsapp, i planning to integrate all these messaging platform into one mega platform come 2020. This is according to an anonymous source who spoke with The New York Times.
This new mega platform will have in it Facebook Messenger, Instagram and whatsapp which are all owned by Facebook. As of now, the three platforms are coded separately. Since not all the three were originally owned by Facebook. This makes the integration extremely difficult or impossible. However, Zuckerberg has assigned developers from the three platforms to look into reformulating the core engines of each platform to allow for integration so they can be unified. This is expected to be ready in 2020.
What this means for you as a user
This proposed integration will mean that a user on one of the platform will be eligible to message another user who is on a separate platform from his. To be clear, if you are a Facebook user, this will mean that you will be able to message someone who is only available on Whatsapp or Instagram or any combination of the three, and the other way round.
However, it is expected that the three platforms will still be separate in that whatsapp would still be whatsapp and Facebook messenger still messenger. But a mega platform would be designed to allow for communication across board. And the good news is that, all the three platforms are expected to have end-to-end encryption feature, which means, any message you send or receive to or from whichever platform will be secure.
What this means for Facebook
Integrating these three platforms will mean that users will turn to Facebook properties for their texting, chatting and video call needs, and this in a way beats all other rival platforms. In turn, Facebook will increase their user engagement translating to more money for the company.
However, this development will be in total opposition to the commitment that Zuckerberg had with Instagram and Whatsapp, when Facebook acquired them, when Whatsapp and Instagram were promised autonomy from Facebook. We would remember that late last year, Facebook said soon whatsapp will be showing ads, which causes a bit of discord with whatsapp.
What do you think? Do you think this is a great idea? Or there’s just no need for this? Share your comments below.
