Facebook Messenger has been a force to reckon with judging from the slew of updates that have been done on the app. Lately, Messenger has developed an ecosystem of its own which encourages developers to build apps that will be used in Messenger. They rolled out video calling worldwide which allows users to connect better in addition to the already present voice calling ability. The app has become so popular in that it is one of the few chat apps that are nearing the billion monthly user base although already it has already joined the exclusive 1 billion app downloads club on the Google Play Store. However in June, Facebook made a radical decision by separating it from the mother ship where people could sign up for Messenger without necessarily having a Facebook account. Recently, they rolled out Facebook M, a personal assistant within Messenger that would take your requests and complete tasks for you.
You may think all these efforts have hit a certain high percentage in what Messenger could do for the typical user. This is not the case because according to an interview done by the Wired, Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s Director of Global Platform Partnerships. “We are one percent finished..one day there will be companies built on Messenger and we are at the beginning of that ecosystem.”
Facebook seems to be quite ambitious with the Messenger project it seems and the natural question is why not create the same thing for their $19 billion purchase, Whatsapp? Well, Facebook’s Vice President for Messaging Products, David Marcus said that “WhatsApp is growing very nicely in developing countries, Messenger is very much focused on developed countries“. The two platforms clearly are being developed to coexist in harmony without overlapping in functionality where each app has its own character in a way. However, according to how Facebook views Messenger, it seems like it has a more interesting future when compared to Whatsapp
