When Facebook originally broke Messenger off into its own app, users weren’t exactly thrilled. One star reviews filled Google Play and the iOS App Store, despite constant downloads and usage. 800 million users wound up using it, with all said and done. Many of these users didn’t even have Facebook accounts. From there, Messenger became its own platform over time and has become full-featured enough to take over some markets, even posing a serious threat to Google in less developed markets like India. The bottom line was that Facebook had planned all along to make Messenger into its own beast over time. These days, you can interact with customer service agents, send friends money and even hail an Uber through Messenger. Thus, it would seem the venture has paid off and, if all goes to plan, will continue to do so.
According to Messenger head David Marcus, Messenger is poised to become the future of long-distance communication. He pointed out that you don’t need a person’s phone number to reach somebody on Messenger and that Messenger is much more full featured than traditional communication. Text, voice, multimedia, money, GIF images, location and more can be sent over Messenger, with that list growing each day. With Messenger As A Platform beginning to really hit its stride, Marcus explains why he thinks this is the natural progression. “It is so much easier to do everything in one place that has the context of your last interactions, as well as your identity – no need to ever log in – rather than downloading apps that you’ll never use again and jumping around from one app to another…”
With Facebook and its efforts to expand into just about every area of tech growing exponentially over the past couple of years, Messenger may be the big one to watch as it picks up more and more capabilities in more and more markets on its way to maturation as an independent platform. Marcus stated that Messenger is the wave of the future and, if the rate of Messengers’s growth is any indication, he may very well be onto something.