Facebook plans to merge Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram apps

Zuckerberg Plans To Merge Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram

The social media giant, Facebook, plans to integrate its messaging services on Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram. The trio is owned by Facebook's Cheif Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and plans are underway to enable users of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram to send messages to other users without needing to switch between apps.

The unification of these three apps will allow over 2.6 billion people to communicate across the platforms for the first time –suggesting the birth of the largest messaging platform. The development seems to be convincingly plausible as users who might be more inclined with one of the platforms, say Whatsapp, will seamlessly access the other platforms without the stress of switching between apps.

Its achievement will leave a lot of privacy questions brewing, anyway, considering Zuckerberg’s ensuing charges alleging the misuse of users’ data; encroaching on privacy, and the fact that Whatsapp only requires a phone number during sign up while Facebook and Instagram require users to provide their true identities.

In a statement by Facebook’s spokeperson, Facebook wants “to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple and private”.

See also: YouTube Bans Dangerous Prank Videos

In another statement, Facebook’s spokesperson also hinted that work is on-going to establish end-to-end encryption –a system that protects messages from being viewed by anyone other than the participants in a conversation– to make it easier to reach friends and families across networks, securedly.

What’s In for Zuckerberg?

Mark Zuckerberg

After acquiring Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and Whatsapp for $19 billion in 2014, the integration plan pinpoints how Zuckerberg is wielding more control over the platforms. This is coming despite Zuckerberg’s promises to allow operational autonomy of the acquired apps.

The integration of Facebook Messenger with Whatsapp and Instagram will generate income from advertising as users will be more engrossed, spending more time communicating in its messaging platform rather than switching between apps.  

It is expected that by the end of 2019 or early 2020, the integration between the apps will be set to roll in; introducing Facebook’s family of apps. The project is at the very start of this long process and to achieve the end-to-end encryption and other layouts, it’ll sure take a long time. Maybe longer than the anticipated time.

Interesting is the fact that even after the unification, the three will remain standalone apps.