Wouldn't it be wise for Facebook to just replace Messenger with WhatsApp and offer that as a platform?
Messenger works great for me and my friends group. Whatsapp seems largely redundant since we stopped bothering to swap numbers years ago
Facebook Messenger Platform
81–90 of 248 posts
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#82Facebook disregards your rights as a creator, user, and individual. I've read enough history to know what sharecropping looks like. Tell me how this is different than sharecropping. Why should I build something I don't control on Lord Zuckerberg's platform so I can play the startup lottery? We did this almost a decade ago. Facebook introduced their developer platform and people started giving up their freedoms. This…
Fool me once...
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#83Ah ha... Now I understand why they pulled Messenger out of the core FB app. So they could badger people for a year to install an intrusive application (or never be able to read those notifications the FB app keeps sending you without firing up a web browser) that would ultimately be leveraged as a B2C marketing platform.
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#84Nice.
I assume Facebook gets a tonne of data about what I ordered etc. (many examples are order confirmations)
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#85This seems kinda disappointing in capability compared with what you see in WeChat. I was expecting you'd be able to build apps that run from inside messenger, instead of toggle back and forth between native apps, possibly using something like ExponentJS/Reactive-Native, but maybe Apple would disapprove. The WeChat SDK allows apps to run JS from inside WeChat itself. You see this in action in China where you can actua…
Have a look at what we're doing with our startup: https://platform.happening.im - it's exactly what you're describing: a (group) messenger that allows third party developers to create their own HTML5-based apps that can have complex functionality and/or interfaces.
The top feature of any software platform is "can reach hundreds of millions of users". Solve that problem first and then maybe you'll be able to entice developers to build on your platform.
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#86The Twitter debacle is what really did it for me. As others have pointed out this is sharecropping through and through. You build anything meaningful on this and Facebook has you by the you-know-whats and can pull the rug out from under you at will. Thanks but no thanks.
> You build anything meaningful on this and Facebook has you by the you-know-whats and can pull the rug out from under you at will. Is that accurate? If I build a chat-based application, why can't I build out interfaces to various services? It may not be trivial, since some will offer features that others don't, but what's the principal problem preventing me from building a chat-based application that works over Goog…
You can but FB has the most MAU's. I believe after FB Skype is the biggest. Is it easy to build bots on multiple platforms?
Personally I'm staying away from Kik. Their MAU is low and I really dislike their constant spam.
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real question is can you get in, win, and get out before any of that matters. If you 'rode the facebook apps' wave you probably made decent money unless you stayed in too long. Another strategy is to build an integration to messenger to get exposure for your totally independant app. For example If i made some pizza ordering ai, i could hook it up to messenger as an additional channel.
If you look at some of the successful startups that started on a platform, this is what they did. Example: Instagram - used Facebook for viral distribution and eventually eclipsed Facebook Imgur - built image hosting for Reddit and now has eclipsed Reddit.
> Instagram - used Facebook for viral distribution and eventually eclipsed Facebook Imgur - built image hosting for Reddit and now has eclipsed Reddit.
Uh, not quite. Imgur would still die if Reddit went away. Same for Instagram. If Twitter and FB went away, it'd die.
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have a look at what we're doing with our startup: https://platform.happening.im - it's exactly what you're describing: a (group) messenger that allows third party developers to create their own HTML5-based apps that can have complex functionality and/or interfaces.
The top feature of any software platform is "can reach hundreds of millions of users". Solve that problem first and then maybe you'll be able to entice developers to build on your platform.
Actually, I recall this platform from being quite popular in the Netherlands for a while. It received quite some media attention and a lot of people I know used it. It's not hundreds of millions, but it definitely had some reach!
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#89People are talking about sharecropping, but this seems to me like they're trying to make Slack-like integrations for the general (non-dev) public. Can someone explain why this is different from Slack's model of using their platform to make apps?
Also people sound like they want to make money from an app on Facebook's platform. But I'd think that to consider making your start-up off someone else's platform is just a bad idea to begin with. Maybe have integrations to the messenger app from your app, but making an entire app on the messenger platform is a bad idea.
Re: Facebook Messenger Platform
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You build anything meaningful on this and Facebook has you by the you-know-whats and can pull the rug out from under you at will. Is that accurate? If I build a chat-based application, why can't I build out interfaces to various services? It may not be trivial, since some will offer features that others don't, but what's the principal problem preventing me from building a chat-based application that works over Goog…
You can but FB has the most MAU's. I believe after FB Skype is the biggest. Is it easy to build bots on multiple platforms? Personally I'm staying away from Kik. Their MAU is low and I really dislike their constant spam.
[deleted]