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Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

wired.com

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Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#3

Post by griffinmb »

lettergram wrote: post #2

To be honest, once Facebook strips the messenger app from the main app I'm done using Facebook. I don't want to agree to the new terms and conditions.

I may be wrong, but I think you misunderstood the 'stripping the messenger app' bit. It's not referring to the web app, just the ios app. Facebook stripped the messenger app from the main iPhone app a few months ago. I don't think there are any additional TOS.

Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#4

Post by the_watcher »

I like that they've done with Messenger. All they did was make an app specifically designed for messaging and remove the bolted on version from the main app. You shouldn't notice any UX differences once you install the new Messenger app thanks to the wonders of deeplinking.

Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#6

Post by bsimpson »

It seems like there are three obvious divisions of the Facebook product:

- Chat

- Shared content (news feed/photos/etc)

- Events

I wonder what the world looks like in which each is treated as a separate product with a common login. I imagine that the size of the user base goes up, but total usage could go down.

I know many people who don't have Facebook because they don't like the constant distraction of its shared content core, but would be open to using it for chat and events (if only because everyone else is). At the same time, there are probably existing users who haven't abandoned it yet because of events/chat, but would like to be less distracted by the content stream. If someone could install only Messenger and Events, effectively opting into those two products and out of Paper, it's not hard to imagine a sizable subset of the Facebook population doing exactly that.

Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#8

Post by a8000 »

bsimpson wrote: post #6

It seems like there are three obvious divisions of the Facebook product: - Chat - Shared content (news feed/photos/etc) - Events I wonder what the world looks like in which each is treated as a separate product with a common login. I imagine that the size of the user base goes up, but total usage could go down. I know many people who don't have Facebook because they don't like the constant distraction of its shared c…

I think a startup focussing on only events and doing them well could have some potential.

Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#9

Post by wlesieutre »

griffinmb wrote: post #3
lettergram wrote: post #2

To be honest, once Facebook strips the messenger app from the main app I'm done using Facebook. I don't want to agree to the new terms and conditions.

I may be wrong, but I think you misunderstood the 'stripping the messenger app' bit. It's not referring to the web app, just the ios app. Facebook stripped the messenger app from the main iPhone app a few months ago. I don't think there are any additional TOS.

Messaging is definitely still in the main iOS app. They advertise "The new Messenger" with banners to get you to switch, but I haven't bothered.

I tried it out briefly, and IIRC had some trouble with chat notifications still coming from the main Facebook app. I could turn off notifications for it, but that'd kill all of the other notifications too. Making chat only in Messenger would solve this, if they haven't fixed it already.

Re: Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps

#10

Post by dethstar »

a8000 wrote: post #8
bsimpson wrote: post #6

It seems like there are three obvious divisions of the Facebook product: - Chat - Shared content (news feed/photos/etc) - Events I wonder what the world looks like in which each is treated as a separate product with a common login. I imagine that the size of the user base goes up, but total usage could go down. I know many people who don't have Facebook because they don't like the constant distraction of its shared c…

I think a startup focussing on only events and doing them well could have some potential.

Perhaps http://www.gethotspotapp.com/
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