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Facebook Messenger 3.0

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Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and LINE, and Kakaotalk, and ... The thing is that many of these apps are both pretty good, and have insane market penetration... It's hard to see why anybody would switch to a FB app that's very likely worse if they're already using something else (so all their contacts are there).

Yeah, if Poke couldn't take down Snapchat, then I don't know what hope this has of displacing those other apps.

They didn't really throw much weight behind Poke. They also had the fb camera app which was a competitor to instagram if you recall. Poke I thought was a weekend project.

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#52
post #35

So this is a shot across the bow at WhatsApp and kik and MessageMe right? Those apps are incredibly popular in developing nations.

Yeah, developing nations like most of Europe and so on...

Most of my friends in South America use it, that's why I said developing nations. I do have EU friends who use it, but their coverage is typically better.

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#53
post #44

To those complaining about this, you're not the target market. I was on a train from Chicago to Detroit a week ago and there was a group of about 10 high schoolers sitting behind me. We got talking about iPhone apps and I asked what was popular. They all agreed Facebook was not as cool anymore and confessed to being addicted to messaging apps that their parents couldn't check up on like they could with texts. Snapcha…

Facebook isn't just losing ground to a specific demographic, they're losing centrality and relevance in a market they defined. While Facebook may be pervasive, it's pervasive in the way that Microsoft Office was in an era of Macs and Google Apps 2 years ago; We all kept a copy of Word installed for when someone emailed us a .doc or .ppt file. Would love to grab lunch or discuss further where this is all headed from a…

Wouldn't the better analogy be "pervasive in the way MySpace was X years ago and America Online was, X years before that"? The question is, what's going to replace it? The "instant messaging" market is too fragmented right now (though one could argue the social network space was just as fragmented before FB exploded). SMS has no fundamental single 'owner' to drive change/feature improvements.

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#57
post #4

It's interesting how they call it texting rather than messaging. I almost thought for a second they really meant SMS.

Very misleading considering the FAQ page [1] says: "Can I use the Facebook Messenger app to send texts (SMS)? Texting (SMS) is not currently available on Messenger."

1: https://www.facebook.com/help/151024075021791/

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#58
post #53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook isn't just losing ground to a specific demographic, they're losing centrality and relevance in a market they defined. While Facebook may be pervasive, it's pervasive in the way that Microsoft Office was in an era of Macs and Google Apps 2 years ago; We all kept a copy of Word installed for when someone emailed us a .doc or .ppt file. Would love to grab lunch or discuss further where this is all headed from a…

Wouldn't the better analogy be "pervasive in the way MySpace was X years ago and America Online was, X years before that"? The question is, what's going to replace it? The "instant messaging" market is too fragmented right now (though one could argue the social network space was just as fragmented before FB exploded). SMS has no fundamental single 'owner' to drive change/feature improvements.

You're missing the distinction; Nobody kept their MySpace around or created a new one once is was replaced because it was unnecessary. You could say it's like AOL Instant Messenger, but if anything that's a weaker analogy since nothing really replaced it so much as IM became a commodity.

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#59
Does anyone know how to remove the reminder to turn on notifications?

Details: - Using latest iOS

- All notifications are off in iPhone's settings

- Every time I switch to the app, a full page message reminds me to turn on notifications (even just swiping to Control Center reproduces the full page message. Aggressive!)

- In the Facebook messenger settings, there are only 2 options: to "Turn off until 8:00am" or "Turn off for 1h".

If this is intentional (or rather if it persists past today), Facebook just lost the last stronghold they had on me. I use them for nothing but messaging. And the one caveat I have for using them is that I only check in when the thought occurs to me not as I'm pinged.

If intentional (speculation coming), I bet they've run the engagement #s to show it makes sense. But this is a bad principle that is pretty restrictive for a company at their scale. They've pretty much increased the cost of cognitive cost of using their app.

The facebook messenger user in me is hoping this is a feature that times out after the first day of installs. Otherwise goodbye Zuck.

Re: Facebook Messenger 3.0

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only really a shot across the bow if Facebook ports their messenger app to feature phones. WhatsApp and the like didn't invent mobile messaging, they just went through the trouble of building J2ME clients across all the cheap handsets found in the developing world so that mobile messaging was available across all devices. Facebook isn't going to make any dent at all in the developing market unless they do the…

Do you know if doing J2ME apps is still necessary in the developing world?

Sorry, didn't see this. But yes, the vast majority of handsets are still dumb, lots of Techno J2ME handsets still being sold.

That said, Android is getting so cheap that it is turning into a chasm between totally dumb phones (not J2ME, just a simple handset) and Android. The former is still the vast vast majority.

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