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Facebook Pushes Their Messenger App

Recently, Facebook has been making more efforts to push the Facebook Messenger application on mobile phones. While the app has long been available for iOS and Android, it finally reached Windows Phone in early March, a whopping two years after the application had arrived on the other platforms. The reasoning behind this launch seems to be that Facebook very much wants its user base to download Facebook Messenger in addition to Facebook itself.

To make this push even more clear, recent reports are stating that Facebook will be removing messaging entirely from the standalone Facebook application, so that users will be forced to download the Facebook Messenger app in order to message their friends on Facebook. Some users in Europe have already been getting notifications stating that they will need to download Facebook Messenger to keep using the chat functions and it is expected that this will eventually ring true for all users of the Facebook mobile app.

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook Messenger application was launched in order to remove friction from the standard Facebook app, so that there could be a more streamlined experience for chatting and direct messaging through a separate application. Though this may be good news for some, others are worried about the potential consequences of this action.

Some suggest that not everyone will want to manage multiple Facebook apps on their phone, while others wonder if this is Facebook’s first step towards merging Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, which they recently acquired. Others have issues with the interface of Facebook Messenger itself, which features icons of people that one is chatting with in a somewhat intrusive manner on the phone’s homescreen. The only way to escape using Facebook Messenger in the future will be to use an Android phone with an OS that is too old to run the app, to use Facebook’s mobile website, or to use Facebook’s news reader app, Paper.

The Evolution of Social Network Security

There’s an odd conflict in the world of social networks regarding privacy. Although social networks tend to be an arena for users to share information with everyone that they know, no matter if these are truly friends or mere acquaintances, the overall privacy of these social network profiles is constantly a hot-button issue. People want to be able to share private information with other Facebook users that they befriended after meeting them once in a bar, but are up in arms if that same information is accessible by strangers or the government. Though this split is a little bit silly in some ways, there are some genuine concerns to be had here and it is generally believed that Facebook and other social networks are doing what they can to protect what their users might consider private information.

The fact of the matter is that social networks are ripe for security breaches. Considering many social network users do not think about if the information or pictures they are posting might be made public, it has not been difficult for hackers (or even government agents) to access potentially damning information about social network users. The NSA has been confirmed to use fake Facebook servers to install malware on computers so that they have an easier time monitoring unsuspecting social network users.

It’s not just Facebook that’s been ripe for privacy breaches. Twitter and Snapchat have had issues with leaked usernames and passwords, which Snapchat responded to at the beginning of the year with privacy updates to its iOS and Android apps. It has been stated that Snapchat has added internal restrictions that make it more difficult for hackers to access private information such as usernames and passwords and Snapchat has also added security features allowing Snapchat users to opt out of the ‘Find Friends’ feature that uses their cell phone number.

Facebook has recently made their work on security a little bit more public so that Facebook users can see exactly what is being done in order to keep their own information private from hackers, government agents, and anyone else that might try to breach security. Some, however, do not trust Facebook regarding its relationship with privacy, and believe that Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp will lead to a lack of privacy in the popular messaging application as well.

One social networking and messaging application, Wickr, is already well-known for its impressive security and encryption features. The company has found a way to monetize their ‘Security Suite’ by offering it for sale to other social networks that wish to implement the level of privacy that is currently offered by Wickr, which has never sold user data or allowed any user data to be accessed by others. Wickr’s ‘Security Suite’ could be the wave of the future when it comes to social networking privacy.

Updated Designs for Facebook and Twitter

Perhaps due to the low attention span of millennials – the largest user base of social media – social networks like Facebook and Twitter often find themselves going through redesigns. Social networks like these have to be sure that they are keeping up with the times and integrating features that are practical for their users. Having a functional design is a large part of this, which is likely why Facebook and Twitter both recently went through redesigns of their own.

Twitter’s redesign came forth in early February and changed things quite a bit from a design perspective. The redesign was received with generally positive feedback from various news sources, as there has been a focus with this update to make sure the social network looks cleaner. Not to be left behind, Facebook rolled out their own redesign for its News Feed at the beginning of March.

However, it seems that even with these recent updates to the designs of Facebook and Twitter, neither company is satisfied with where they are at. A few people have already been able to view yet another new Twitter design update that seems to integrate aspects of Pinterest and Facebook. Though this is not a guarantee that the design will go through, as social networks have tested out designs in the past that never came to fruition, it is still possible that Twitter is looking into making an even larger update to their interface.

In Facebook’s case, they announced an overhaul roughly a year ago for their News Feed that never manifested itself. It is not yet known if this overhaul that was supposed to be launched last year has been abandoned entirely or if it is still an update that’s on the horizon. It’s possible Facebook is still making tweaks to it, especially seeing that other social networks like Twitter are making constant updates to their own interface. Either way, it’s very likely that Facebook and Twitter as they are now are not likely to look the same six months or a year from now.

Facebook Pays $19 Billion for WhatsApp Acquisition

WhatsApp is an instant messaging app for smartphones that has been getting enormously popular in recent months, becoming the most popular messaging app for mobile devices; it works best as a messaging service that can send messages between phones internationally and allows for users to send text, images, audio, and video messages to one another. Some have stated that WhatsApp is doing for text messaging what Skype did to phone calls on landlines, in that it is totally revolutionizing the process.

Thus, it is unsurprising that a major company like Facebook took notice of WhatsApp, considering WhatsApp already had over 450 million users and was adding an additional million users every day at the time of the purchase, a number which is already increasing. With a growth rate that impeccable and a service that is extremely useful, Facebook leapt on the opportunity to purchase WhatsApp last week, by paying a whopping $19 billion to the employees of WhatsApp: $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in stock, and another $3 billion in stock grants that will be paid out if WhatsApp’s founders and staff remain employed by Facebook for four years.

Facebook has a tendency to always be growing, expanding, and changing with the market. The acquisition of WhatsApp is no different. Just like Facebook has continued to expand its other properties such as Instagram, they already have big plans for how to further enhance WhatsApp. Their first announcement has been that WhatsApp will be adding voice calls to its messaging service, putting it in competition with Skype and even mobile carriers.

There has been additional speculation about what Facebook will be doing with WhatsApp in the coming months. Though WhatsApp will continue to operate independently, it is likely that Facebook will do a lot of what it did for Instagram. The growth of WhatsApp and its user base is something that Facebook will likely focus on, as well as recruiting new employees from other companies and making design and coding changes to make WhatsApp better and more efficient.

Facebook Launches Paper, a News-Reading Application

Facebook’s most recent endeavor was launched for iOS on Monday; it’s a news reader application called Paper and it’s the first release from Facebook Creative Labs, a section of the company that is dedicated specifically to launching mobile apps that integrate Facebook in new and interesting ways. Thus far, the application is receiving positive reviews, integrating functions from Facebook and similar news reader apps like Flipboard and Feedly, while being packaged with an attractive and functional design.

One thing that’s particularly interesting about Paper’s design is that it lacks buttons. Instead, the app relies on swiping motions and phone tilts. The news reader will integrate both the News Feed of a user’s Facebook page as well as a variety of content sources such as popular blogs and news websites, which will allow Paper users to easily read or view all of the content and news that they are interested in.

Early reviews of Paper have been overwhelmingly positive, with some news sources even claiming that Paper could become a replacement for Facebook itself, due to the sleek way it integrates the News Feed and other useful information into one high quality application. Though Paper lacks some of the full features of Facebook, such as Events, it still includes most of the things that Facebook can do.

Not everyone is excited about Paper, however. In particular, a startup known as FiftyThree is upset about the name. Their own drawing application is also called Paper. However, their only trademark is for ‘Paper By FiftyThree’ rather than ‘Paper’ itself and it appears that the two companies are in a bit of a spat over the name. FiftyThree has attempted to trademark the name ‘Paper’ but this may be a legal loophole that allows Facebook to stick with the name.

Editing Posts and Tweaking Your Social Network Presence

In a smart move, Facebook began to allow the editing of posts last September in the web browser and in the Android version of the social network’s application. This was followed by a similar feature in the iOS application in October. It’s surprising how long it took Facebook to allow users to edit their posts, considering what a hassle it once was to correct a typo or edit a post for whatever other reason you might need to edit it for.

Though Facebook allowed users to edit comments on posts for over a year before implementing this feature, it was a breath of fresh air to finally be able to correct typos in the text of a Facebook post itself. Previously, a user would have to delete the post, lose all the Likes and comments, and repost the status entirely in order to fix a typo.

The reason that it took so long for Facebook to allow for users to edit their posts was because they wanted to prevent Facebook users from abusing this feature. For instance, they didn’t want someone to post something, wait until it got plenty of Likes, and then edit the post so that it looked like their Facebook friends had Liked something else entirely. The way that Facebook is getting around this is by offering an ‘Edit history’ to any post that is edited, so that users can see how the post has been changed.

Facebook is not the only social network that has allowed for recent editing functions. Vine also released an editing function in October, albeit one that operates a bit differently than the edit function on Facebook. Editing videos on Vine is referred to as ‘Time Travel’ and it allows users to reorganize different shots before posting videos on their Vine account, which will allow for many more interesting applications for the Vine social network.

The Death of Facebook?

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts that Facebook’s popularity amongst kids and teens has been on a decline. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has even noted that this is the first time that there has been a decrease in daily teenage users since the social network was launched a decade ago. Even though Facebook has over a billion active users, this recent decline has made some people believe that the death of Facebook, at least as the supreme reigning social network, might not be too far away.

A recent study done by researchers at Princeton University compared the growth and potential decline of Facebook to that of an epidemic disease. When comparing the spread of the social network’s popularity to the way diseases like the bubonic plague were once spread, the researchers were able to predict that the site’s user count will drop by 80 percent before the year 2017. The reason behind the study was that ideas have often been shown to spread infectiously before dying out, not unlike diseases. Losing interest in an idea can be compared to developing an immunity to a disease.

The researchers viewed the number of Google searches for Facebook and noticed that there had been a peak in December 2012. They were able to compare this to a similar peak in searches for MySpace in 2008, right before it began to head towards its eventual decline. Though the researchers did not insinuate what the successor to Facebook might be, it’s not impossible that their findings could be accurate, considering how MySpace was once at the height of popularity and now is not even close in popularity to many of its competitors.

One interesting report has stated that even President Obama is aware that Facebook is losing its ‘cool factor.’ Obama was quoted as saying, during a meeting regarding the 18-34 year old demographic, that “It seems like they don’t use Facebook anymore,” which shows that Facebook’s decline is something quite noticeable. With many teenagers and twenty-somethings turning to Instagram and Snapchat, it’s entirely plausible that Facebook’s user base may not be such a powerhouse in a few years.

Recent Security Breaches for Social Networks

In early December, it was revealed that there had been yet another massive breach in social network security, as 2 million passwords were stolen in a hack that affected accounts for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and more. The hackers, who are believed to have originated from the Netherlands, were using a virus that allowed them to access information for more than 93,000 websites, including many major social networks.

More recently, it appears that the security of Snapchat has also been compromised. A recent hack resulted in information regarding 4.6 million accounts getting posted on a website known as SnapchatDB.info. Though the site has since been suspended, the hackers were able to get information regarding phone numbers and passwords for all of these individual accounts.

According to the people behind Snapchat, the hole that allowed for this security breach has been sealed. However, some people believe that Snapchat’s response to the hack is evident of their existence as a very young startup company. One particular issue is that a group of ‘white hat hackers’ – people who find holes in security so that companies can prevent these kinds of breaches – had explicitly told Snapchat that there were holes that could be exploited. Yet Snapchat ignored this and didn’t even admit to their mistake in not listening when they released a brief statement regarding the breach.

Though these breaches in security have been unfortunate for a lot of people, one website is trying their hardest to help people find out whether or not their account has been compromised. The website ‘haveibeenpwned‘ allows people to enter their e-mail addresses that are used for these accounts to find out if theirs are among the accounts that have been compromised by any of these recent breaches. The website checks Adobe, Snapchat, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo!, Vodafone, Pixel Federation, and Sony accounts.

Instagram Direct: Private Picture Messaging

Instagram’s most recent update has included the launch of a private picture messaging system that is being referred to as Instagram Direct. The service allows Instagram users to send each other private messages that can include photos or videos; this contrasts Instagram’s previous features, which only allowed the public posting of photos and videos to a user’s profile. Instagram Direct allows for special messages and private photos to be sent to up to 15 people at once.

It was truly no surprise that Instagram launched Instagram Direct this month, as there had been rumors regarding a direct messaging service for quite some time. It seemed like the obvious step that Instagram needed to take to become a more effective social network. Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, tried out a postcard service last year that would allow users to send paper prints of photos to their friends; the service never generated much interest and was quickly shut down. Physical printing and sharing was not what users wanted; they were simply looking for private messaging.

Though it was generally agreed upon that Instagram needed Instagram Direct in order to further evolve, responses to the new service have been lukewarm. One of the primary issues with Instagram Direct is that it does not do very much to separate itself from competing social networks and messaging apps such as the features available through Snapchat and Twitter.

Considering Facebook tried and failed to purchase Snapchat earlier this year, their foray into private picture messaging is going to inevitably be compared to Snapchat and Instagram Direct needs to do a little bit more to separate itself from the herd. It has been stressed, however, that the feature is currently in its earliest stages, so it remains to be seen if there will be new features revealed that may allow Instagram Direct to make a name for itself.

Facebook’s New Video Advertisements

Advertising is truly what generates the money for social networks and they are always trying to find new and innovative ways to advertise to their users. Since so many people use social networks in this day and age, brands are always striving to advertise to them and cater to potential customers based on their interests. Facebook’s most recent addition to their advertising repertoire comes in the form of auto-playing video advertisements.

The video advertisements are intended to not be entirely distracting from the social network itself. The videos will play automatically without sound within the News Feed, but if they are clicked on, they will extend to full screen and sound will begin to play. When the video is finished, the same advertiser will also offer two additional videos that can be potentially viewed by the Facebook user if they are interested in whatever is being advertised.

Interestingly, this method of advertisement may challenge marketers to take a new approach when it comes to finding new ways to make potential customers interested in their products. Because the video ads are not particularly intrusive, are soundless to begin with, and can be easily scrolled past, advertisers will need to find catchy ways to intrigue the interest of Facebook users without using sound in the short period of time that it will take for someone on Facebook to scroll past the ad.

Though the Facebook video advertisements have already been launched this week, they are still in the testing phases. They will initially only appear for some Facebook users, before they are gradually rolled out to the entirety of the social network’s user base. Facebook’s stock has already seen a 2% increase, based on the belief that these video advertisements will continue to boost the company’s revenue.