Facebook’s attempts are not just to go mobile, but partner with the most successful feature services. However, making apps for Facebook for mobile platform is not just challenging for third-party developers. Facebook’s own in-house team feels just as challenged.
This need for external support was also strongly felt for their messenger service as well. Which led to their acquisition of Beluga, a popular group messaging service. Facebook Messenger that became a standalone Facebook app for the PC and smartphones. But to compete against other social networks such as Google’s Chat as well mobile devices in house text services proved that something more than just words was needed. So now we have their updated Facebook Messenger version 1.9 for iOS and Android, which allows users to add emoticons such as smileys and hearts.
The change may not sound like a big deal, but will definitely thrill the teenagers. Apparently, Facebook has been pretty thorough in their research and the reason for this latest development: Renowned research company Pew’s recent report shows a rising trend of teenagers prefers using social network’s messaging services to interact with their each other on a daily basis. The percentage exceeds those using IM, phones or e-mails. Use of emoticons complements text in a quick and easy way. Some even go as far as to say they give ‘life’ to a message.
But why Emoji? The use of emoticons to complement the text changes the appearance and meaning of the Apparently, this Japanese artwork seems to have gained more popularity around the world more than any other emoticons. This led to the alternative keyboard on the iPhone dedicated exclusively to Emoji.
What next? With every update comes another new challenge, which is how to improve it further. Some comment suggest how adding video to messages will be another plus point for Facebook Messenger. Google on the other hand has the video chat, but not emoticons yet. So it’s highly likely they will borrow the idea from each other.
Unless of course Facebook decides they would much rather go for another acquisition. The first one that comes to mind is Skype whose users have exceeded 40 million. And they have a great set of emoticons too. Earlier both Google and Facebook had considered buying the company on more than one occasion. That is until Microsoft purchased it. If Skype is reconsidered, it will involve incentivizing the partnership with Microsoft. Except for one drawback: Skype is just as weak in their mobile strategy as Facebook and right now, Facebook is in a state of panic in going mobile.
The best and, as was mentioned at the beginning, the most difficult choice would be to make a Facebook application which would be combination of all of the above.
Salman Ghaznavi is the founder of Avenuesocial Inc.
a company focused on social media marketing and tool design &
development. Avenuesocial is one of the premium Facebook App
Consultants, and My role
is to actively pursue a global strategy, create and help roll-out
Avenuesocial social tool, the AS Pathways. The AS Pathways tool offers
social media marketing and analytics with integrated campaign management
(on Facebook and Twitter), multi-channel execution, engagement reports
and user management.
No comments:
Post a Comment