It appears that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, plans to Integrate the messaging services of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Basically, you will be able to cross message across these three platforms.
Facebook is currently redeploying thousands of developers (devs) to carry out this task. They will reconfigure the Infrastructure on how WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger function at their core. The new underlying messaging system will support end-to-end encryption – irrespective of your platform.
You will still be able to use each service, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger as a standalone app whilst the work is being carried out. A spokesman for Facebook said: “We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private.
“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. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work.”
Not everyone is happy?
The report also suggests that some employees at Instagram and WhatsApp are not entirely happy with this change of direction. WhatsApp employees feared that the strong privacy and encryption of their platform could be comprised in an effort to establish this greater messaging system. Users can be anonymous on WhatsApp and Instagram, but not on Facebook, and it is unknown how the merger will affect this. When Facebook bought Instagram, it was promised that it would have autonomy, but it seems Facebook is exerting greater control day by day.
Facebook is hoping that by merging these messaging services would help drive better user engagement and app loyalty. Personally, I feel being able to message someone from WhatsApp off Facebook Messenger is going to mean less messaging apps to juggle with.
The launch for the new service is currently pencilled in for 2020, assuming all is well.
