Facebook to merge WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger

General Chat Tech & Gaming
1

Wow.

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2

Well that’ll be… interesting

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3

Initially thought “holy moly”, until I saw it’s just a click bait article!

Each app wil remain distinct from each other, though the underlying messaging infrastucture will be unified, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sounds more like the back end services than any UI changes.

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4

It sounds like they’re allowing users to message users on other platforms, rather than turning them into a single app, which is what a lot of headlines suggest.

oh, just saw what @nickh said :point_up: I concur!

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5

I agree with that assessment though Facebook did say Instagram and WhatsApp would remain seperate so this may be the first step into eventually unifying them

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6

I think it is. Means I could get rid of Facebook completely and have WhatsApp only. Which would be great!

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7

Potentially it could mean that Facebook would be able to work out the phone numbers of users who haven’t provided them by linking to whatsapp, and also link to their instagrams.

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8

This needs to happen. Don’t care about Instagram, but I’m fed up of having so many apps to do the same thing.

9

Does it really though?

Do you actually use fb messenger or instagram dms?
I dont but it wont mean ill get the delete the apps now.

10

Calling it now… future name

What’s-app-messenger-agram

Just in case they go for the all in one app in the future :wink:

11

If Instagram wasn’t as unique and popular as it is then I could easy bin all three of them. I have Facebook but don’t really use it, WhatsApp is a work thing even though we use Google :roll_eyes: but Instagram, I’m not sure I could part ways with

12

It’ll be interesting to see how they manage to link them since whatsapp is uses phone numbers not email addresses.

13

What happens with encryption? WhatsApp is end to end encrypted whereas Facebook Messenger and instagram are not.

14

That is probably more troubling given that they pretty much told the competition authorities that they would not be doing such things

They really should not have waved through the WhatApp and Instagram purchases so lightly - eyes on other events and persuaded by promises never taken in writing…

15

Missed this article first time around. Nice and snarky

But then came the discovery of mismatched priorities. Facebook was apparently surprised that privacy-minded WhatsApp would not reneg its pledge to remain ad-free; WhatsApp was apparently surprised that Facebook wanted to make money.

Facebook and WhatsApp’s values were mismatched from the beginning. Famously lean WhatsApp was obsessed with user privacy and opposed to ads. Facebook was—well, Facebook. For the first two years after the purchase, WhatsApp continued to operate largely independently.

16

I would love to believe they will implement it for all three now, but bitter experience suggests that the lowest common denominator tends to win through when merging processes and practices

17

I think the BBC reported the E2E encryption was staying? :thinking:

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18

Don’t have an Instagram account, but I have to keep my facebook open for the occasional message I get, and for a group as part of a club I’m in. Consolidating the two would be handy. I’d love to get rid of Telegram while I’m at it. I had to download that because two friends use it exclusively.

19

Facebook pretty much promised this would not happen so I’ll wait and see how their promises on end to end encryption pan out!

20

This was originally reported in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html

They said:

Mr. Zuckerberg has also ordered that the apps all incorporate end-to-end encryption, the people said, a major step that protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in a conversation.

In a statement, Facebook said it wanted to “build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private.” It added: “We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.”

Which is better than the alternative, I suppose…

But the big question is: Signal or Telegram instead of WhatsApp?

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