Facebook’s acquisitions of a wide variety of companies was the start of its journey to becoming the single biggest social media company in the world. Last year the social media platform revealed its intentions to facilitate inter app functionality, something that many had been speculating on based on standardized branding appearing across its various properties but had previously not really been officially confirmed by Facebook. We have already seen some signs of integration including a centralized account control location where you can control all of your accounts, and now perhaps the most exciting form of inter compatibility is being rolled out.
This has to do with Instagram and Messenger, and in what is being referred to as the Messenger Experience on Instagram, users of the social media platform would be able to communicate with people through Messenger even if they don’t own the app. This might cause a little bit of confusion at first because of the fact that people are used to have distinct accounts that are all useful but are also separate and this trend was also seen in the different ways that people use the various social media accounts that they have.
A lot of new features are coming to this inter app experience too. Now you would be able to watch things with your loved ones from IGTV and Facebook Watch, and thanks to Facebook’s collaboration with major movie studios and TV channels you would be able to access a lot of other pieces of content as well. This massive library is going to be something that Facebook relies on in order to encourage people to use this new app that the platform has essentially created.
One cause for concern for a number of people has to do with what this means for WhatsApp. Facebook has avoided being too hands on with integrating WhatsApp, limiting this to Facebook Pay functionality among a few other things. However, with Instagram and Messenger being so thoroughly integrated, it’s fair to say that people that use WhatsApp might be forced to integrate with other apps and services that Facebook owns as well. This is going to be a problem for many because of the fact that even people that don’t have an Instagram or Facebook account would use WhatsApp since it is the dominant text messaging service in the world right now, and they might not want any forced integration with other apps.
Sources: Facebook Newsroom.
Read next: Facebook's Crowdsourced Prediction Service “Forecast” is Now Widely Available in North America
This has to do with Instagram and Messenger, and in what is being referred to as the Messenger Experience on Instagram, users of the social media platform would be able to communicate with people through Messenger even if they don’t own the app. This might cause a little bit of confusion at first because of the fact that people are used to have distinct accounts that are all useful but are also separate and this trend was also seen in the different ways that people use the various social media accounts that they have.
A lot of new features are coming to this inter app experience too. Now you would be able to watch things with your loved ones from IGTV and Facebook Watch, and thanks to Facebook’s collaboration with major movie studios and TV channels you would be able to access a lot of other pieces of content as well. This massive library is going to be something that Facebook relies on in order to encourage people to use this new app that the platform has essentially created.
Today we're sharing an update to @instagram DMs that will bring the best of @Messenger to the app. You'll soon be able to communicate across apps with features like watch together, selfie stickers, vanish mode, emoji reactions and more. https://t.co/QOBnvuL8sP pic.twitter.com/i6QGGJyK1p— Facebook (@Facebook) September 30, 2020
One cause for concern for a number of people has to do with what this means for WhatsApp. Facebook has avoided being too hands on with integrating WhatsApp, limiting this to Facebook Pay functionality among a few other things. However, with Instagram and Messenger being so thoroughly integrated, it’s fair to say that people that use WhatsApp might be forced to integrate with other apps and services that Facebook owns as well. This is going to be a problem for many because of the fact that even people that don’t have an Instagram or Facebook account would use WhatsApp since it is the dominant text messaging service in the world right now, and they might not want any forced integration with other apps.
Sources: Facebook Newsroom.
Read next: Facebook's Crowdsourced Prediction Service “Forecast” is Now Widely Available in North America
