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Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

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Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#111
post #17

Eventually facebook will become so user hostile the network effect will mean that so many people are leaving it'll be like Digg and Myspace all over again. Can we go back to the time when companies tried to please users instead of advertisers?

I'm not a heavy Facebook user, so I may very well be wrong, but I think Facebook is slowly start to be less valuable in some respects.

For instance businesses need to start evaluating if they really require a Facebook presence. The users that can reach you on Facebook are obnoxious, and expects 24/7 feedback. Unless you are a small niche business you're simply not able to build sufficient community around your Facebook page for it to help further your business. For medium and large companies Facebook is just a place for customers to complain and win prices.

As the company I work for has expanded and become less and less niche we seeing decreasing user engagement from our customers on Facebook, unless they can win a price. At this point marketing really should evaluate the continued need for maintaining a Facebook page, it's just becoming a third support channel, but one where peoples expectations are simply to high, in terms of response time.

Honestly, why is companies like Coca Cola or Volvo on Facebook, it make zero sense when you think about it.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#112
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has perfectly acceptable push notification support. I am an occasional user of Facebook Messenger, and using the mobile website was perfect: I don't care if notifications are delayed or even lost (I'll see the messages eventually anyway). But there's no way I'm going to install a separate app for something I use maybe once a week, tops. If it stops working from the mobile website, then I just wait until I'm ba…

I'll assume, by Chrome you mean desktop Chrome. This is irrelevant to my comment. I was specifically talking about realtime push notifications via mobile devices. Also remember that your preference is just your preference, many people would want to be able to make sure their messages get seen in realtime. And Facebook probably wants that for their users too. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just saying…

Chrome on Android does support real-time push notifications. I know because I was notified of a friend's Facebook post I was mentioned in within 5 seconds of my friend posting it. I don't have Facebook installed on my phone, and he posted it from his phone while my phone was face up on the table between us and we both where surprised at how fast I was notified.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple yes, practical no.

Practical enough for me. The only thing I use Facebook for is to say "Thank you" when folks wish me a happy birthday on my "wall". For literally everything else, the friends and family worth talking to have gotten the message that I'm not reliably reachable on Facebook and therefore should be reached by other means (and if they're worth talking to, they should already have my phone number and/or email address). It's…

> The only thing I use Facebook for is to say "Thank you" when folks wish me a happy birthday on my "wall".

You can fix that by removing your birthday from Facebook. I did that one year and it turned out as expected, people only wish you happy birthday on Facebook, because Facebook more or less tells them to.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#115
Speaking of dark patterns, Google has completely broken Gmail and Google Docs/Drive in incognito mode in Android Chrome. It purposefully loses the cookie and will not function once you switch away to another app and then back to the browser. They are trying hard to force people into using the native apps, or at least staying logged in, for GMail/Inbox and Drive. It's really lame. Instead of being passive-aggressive, they could just put up a message saying that they don't support a specific usage. This is a well known "bug" that has been around in their bug tracker for a while.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#116
post #48
post #20

I dislike this change. I specifically only access Facebook on my phone via the web app because (1) it saves significant battery and (2) I absolutely do not want the popup bubbles during the work day from church and other social groups I am connected to on Facebook. Ultimately, all this means is that I will stop accessing Facebook Messenger on my phone all together. I will communicate with the people who matter most o…

I wonder where that leaves the say 10% of users that use a browser because they are on an device that isn't supported by Messenger (obsolete Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Fire, etc).

It's possible they could detect those devices and leave chat active in the web app.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#117
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has perfectly acceptable push notification support. I am an occasional user of Facebook Messenger, and using the mobile website was perfect: I don't care if notifications are delayed or even lost (I'll see the messages eventually anyway). But there's no way I'm going to install a separate app for something I use maybe once a week, tops. If it stops working from the mobile website, then I just wait until I'm ba…

I'll assume, by Chrome you mean desktop Chrome. This is irrelevant to my comment. I was specifically talking about realtime push notifications via mobile devices. Also remember that your preference is just your preference, many people would want to be able to make sure their messages get seen in realtime. And Facebook probably wants that for their users too. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just saying…

Android Chrome supports push notifications, even when the browser is not loaded.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#118
post #84
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Users were messaging via the web frontend, so we fixed the glitch."

And we were doing it because Facebook was pushing their messenger app, when the normal Facebook app handled it just fine. They just simply decided one day, oh hey let's redirect the messages page on the Facebook app to a static page saying "download messenger" and not give any access to the messages, including view-access. Even when you get a notification on your phone about a new message.

I actually liked that I could use a messenger app without all the rest of the stuff that I never used. But I think they split it back then because they wanted to have something more similar to whatsapp (which wasn't theirs yet) - They apparently let you use a phone number to log to messenger too.
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