The Emergence of a Completed Facebook Ecosystem?

In this article I would like to take a moment to ponder a bit about the ambitious steps of the Facebook ecosystem and what this social networking is aiming to and building around us.

Detaching the social network application and the OTT messenger

Most of you may still remember the time when on the phone you had only one Facebook app and you could both surf the social network and chat on it. By April 2014, Facebook blocked the chat function on the main application and forced all users to download the Messenger app to chat. At that time, many users complained and got dissatisfied, but gradually it was settled down. Now, everyone uses Messenger, and the application now has more than 700 million monthly active users. And it’s one of the first steps for everything that Facebook is building today.

Source: messenger

In essence, Facebook Messenger has existed long before (born in 2011) but was little known. Facebook began to pay attention to the text messaging when OTT applications such as Whatsapp and WeChat emerged. This company has spent $ 19 billion buying the most popular chat application, WhatsApp (currently has 900 million users). This is one of the most popular deals in the tech world by the end of 2014. So now Facebook has two OTT applications with the largest number of users in the world so far.

The potential of OTT applications lies in: messaging and calling are two essential features of using the phone and users tend to use these two features almost every day. By enabling easier communication, with more features (which can send video, document), and with cheaper costs (no cost, just the internet), OTT applications have quickly won the hearts of user.

One of the most frustrating things about using a phone is probably because every phone application is a silo. You can not go directly from the messaging application to the search browser or to the map but it requires you to exit the current application and then open the other one. OTT applications are the best answer for solving this problem.

Nowadays some OTT applications like WeChat are no longer just chat applications, but have become a platform where users can do everything from messaging to calling, viewing the map, pay bills, see the weather, order food, call taxi, etc. Now these OTT applications themselves have become a platform on which it integrates 3rd party applications to address the needs of the user. They do not even have to leave the OTT application because everything they need is already available.

Facebook Messenger has the ability to integrate with Uber booking and forthcoming with other similar services such as ordering food with Foodpanda. This application was also previously experimenting with a feature that allows friends to send money to each other (5). Messenger also has a bundle of integrations with third-party services (like sending animations, reading newspapers). Therefore this application, like WeChat, has come out of the area of just a regular OTT chat application and becomes a platform.

The awe of Facebook lies in the fact that if we look further, we can see that Facebook is building a platform that covers everything surrounding us in the digital world. From social networking, chatting, e-commerce, virtual reality, search, comparison and listing, and more recently video streaming.

Source: pinterest

By separating the OTT messenger application from the main application, Facebook is very wise to be able to focus on developing social network features for the main application while the messenger application can focus on developing to become a platform that covers all the rest. Social network has limits about social networking, OTT has its own limitations, and sometimes these two things together are not necessarily good, for example, social network oriented OTT such as Viber, Line or even Zalo now are not really outstanding. Everyone still uses Facebook. But if you’re the biggest social network in the world, and you’re are owning the OTT application with the most users worldwide, this is another story. And with the combination of these two tools, Facebook has a solid foundation to launch any product that this company wants.

And one day if Facebook successfully builds its ecosystem, then maybe all that you need, this social network will be able to provide and you will not have to step out of the ecosystem. At that time, people will no longer call it the Internet, but instead the Facenet or the Facebooknet.

The discussion about the ecosystem of Facebook ends here. If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic then please below.