What the Whatsapp acquisition tells us about Facebook's mobile strategy

http://blog.jordankong.ca/post/77223250017/unbundling-facebook-what-the-whatsapp-acquisition

by mints • 12 years ago

12 9 12 years ago

blog.jordankong.ca

geuis• 12 years ago

What it tells us is simple and people keep trying to make more of it than it is.

Users are leaving Facebook in droves. Facebook is buying back users who's attention they have lost.

People are migrating to other services that offer a better experience for the task at hand. This is what Facebook/Google/Microsoft keep forgetting.

FB bought Instagram because their own photo feature wasn't as good and that's where they sensed people would be moving to. They've mostly left IG alone and it's been good.

WhatsApp is a better IM experience. Facebook buys them to get back users that have left.

The thing to remember is that people leaving something like Facebook isn't "I'm deleting my account", it's inattention attrition. Facebook users don't die (mostly), they just stop caring.

So FB buying WA doesn't mean much except FB is trying to alter its course. To their credit, they have the foresight to see they're failing and attempt a course correction.

threeseed• 12 years ago

Sorry but no. Facebook is not bleeding users in fact they are still gaining them with engagement still incredibly high.

What is happening is that we are in a period of transition from feature phones and PCs to smart mobile devices. And it is a new landscape with new winners and losers. Facebook is no longer the only player like it was on the web and so it needs to acquire companies with existing mindshare.

Ultimately Facebook is trying to do one thing. Make sure that every minute you spend on a mobile device is within one of their apps.

junto• 12 years ago

I think people are leaving, but I'm sure FB are acquiring users faster than they are losing them. Also the standard user doesn't grok the feed personalisation features so they switch off as a result. I left FB post Snoden. My wife has a news feed that she finds uninteresting but is not bothered enough to tune that feed to her benefit. She just visits Facebook less often.

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

I disagree with the article. This was Facebook countering an existential threat to their core business.

ulfw• 12 years ago

Wholeheartedly agree. Their mobile 'strategy' for years has been very tactical, not strategical. Their own initiatives largely failed (anyone still use that chathead Android 'take over your whole phone' app they praised a year ago?).

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

Is this a tacit admission from FB that Zuckerberg's statements from past conferences on how people want to share everything is basically wrong?

People don't want to share everything with everyone. They want to share what they want with the people they want.

johnvschmitt• 12 years ago

Nope. Not at all.

It was about buying USERS, not an app or feature.

swohns• 12 years ago

I'd actually add that it was about user engagement (there is a huge overlap in whatsapp users and facebook users). WhatsApp has far more daily usage than even Facebook boosts, and this was the initial statistic that Facebook was able to point to as validation at it's inception.

kkl232• 12 years ago

Outside of the US, texting across different carriers often cost money. WhatsApp is a better messaging service because it is so light-weight and provides users with exactly what they want. They just want to TEXT. Users just want the simplest app to just text. And WhatsApp is much preferred because it loads much faster than fb messenger and resembles the traditional texting experience.

What the Whatsapp acquisition tells us about Facebook's mobile strategy

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