Zuckerberg's latest strategy for Facebook has been to develop a series of stand-alone apps to drive user engagement. Instead of using Facebook mobile for everything from chatting to sharing photos to reading the news, Zuckerberg has pushed for separate apps like Facebook Messenger and Paper.
The problem is, people aren't entirely receptive to this idea. Even though tons of people downloaded Paper the day after its release, it now doesn't even claim a spot in the top 100 free apps. Facebook's other attempts at stand-alone apps were even more disappointing. Facebook Camera and Facebook Poke (a blatant attempt to copy Snapchat) were so unpopular that Facebook is no longer pursuing any more active development with them. Some people have downloaded Facebook Messenger for separate messaging, but a lot of people still use Facebook's all-in-one app. Soon, they won't have a choice.
Facebook recently announced that it's removing messaging capabilities from its main app, forcing people to download Messenger to chat with friends. Facebook already started notifying some users in Europe of the change, and soon, it will apply to all users.
Not everyone is pleased about the change. A writer from Mashable published "11 Reasons Why Pulling Messenger From Facebook Mobile Is A Terrible Idea," which mainly argued that people will resent having to download a separate app and switch back and forth from regular Facebook to Messenger. Facebook responded to his article defending the switch, saying that in the months since Messenger's launch, it has grown more than 70 percent. Facebook also found that people get replies 20 percent faster on Messenger than they do on the regular Facebook app.
Zuckerberg explained:
“The other thing that we’re doing with Messenger is making it so once you have the standalone Messenger app, we are actually taking Messenger out of the main Facebook app. And the reason why we’re doing that is we found that having it as a second-class thing inside the Facebook app makes it so there’s more friction to replying to messages, so we would rather have people be using a more focused experience for that.”
A more "focused experience." Therein lies Facebook's plan to conquer mobile, one app at a time. Messenger hardly even resembles Facebook. Gone is the familiar navy hue, replaced with sleek and simplified navigation. You can even use Messenger to chat with friends who don't have Facebook.
In theory, standalone apps are a good idea. People are clearly moving in the direction of using many apps for separate purposes, like Snapchat for direct picture/video messaging and Instagram for photo-sharing. But here's the problem: People don't like being forced to change. And by removing the messaging feature from Facebook mobile, Facebook is forcing people to download Messenger.
It's just like when I was a kid and I refused to do what my mother asked me to solely because it was her idea, and I wanted to come up with it on my own. Maybe a lot of people have been downloading Messenger of their own accord and enjoying it, but those people aren't a majority of Facebook users. And now the rest of us have no choice but to download Messenger, and that may not go over well.
Zuckerberg's plan to shift toward standalone apps isn't a bad one, but forcing people to comply is.
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