Facebook to Add Its Name to Instagram, WhatsApp
theinformation.com
theinformation.com
Something doesn't quite add up here in my mind. Facebook is the one brand of the three that stands to benefit from this. Are Instagram's and WhatsApp's brands strong enough to buoy Facebook's brand?
> While studies show that Facebook’s brand has been tarnished by its many privacy scandals, and that users are increasingly becoming more aware of the firm’s data collection practices, Instagram and WhatsApp have largely remained unscathed. Two 2018 surveys conducted by the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo found that more than half of Americans didn’t know Facebook owned Instagram or WhatsApp.
Once the word's out, prepare for their reputation to be scathed.
it's virtually impossible to buy food today that is not owned by 3 companies, who will eventually "take the fall" but be too big for it to matter
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-foo...
even the most hipster eco hand made brands in wholefoods are most likely an off brand of nestle or uses their products as main ingredient and doesn't list it as such.
But WhatsApp growth was entirely on WhatsApp. It had become THE de facto chat app outside the US well before FB acquired it. And this was despite it being a paid app at the time (I remember paying a few dollars for lifetime access).
I suspect WhatsApp would have penetrated the US market much like it has now anyways, because it’s not like FB Has advertised WhatsApp at all. It’s growth has been nearly entirely organic.
In practice Android users would get their free trial period extended regularly. I'm not sure anyone but iPhone users (who are less price sensitive) actually paid for Whatsapp.
It also strengthens its hold on those properties and makes it more part of one company. Harder to “break up” a company that is deeply intertwined. And its more clear to users that when they are using Instagram, they are really using Facebook.
All in all, I don’t get the negativity around this announcement. Makes perfect sense.
The negativity is largely out of fear that the existing communities etc. around Instagram and WhatsApp might take a hit when people who might not have been conscious of Facebook's ownership of either of them might now be more aware of it -- and thus see Facebook's influence on both. Public perception right now is more in agreement with the belief that Facebook largely left Instagram and WhatsApp alone, and with the founders of both having left Facebook in the last year or two, Facebook's now free to exert more influence around the direction both of these properties take.
This sounds like a great outcome to me. Who wouldn't want more transparency in what products are owned by which companies? I would expect this to drive users away from Instagram and WhatsApp.
The people who "fear that the existing communities etc. around Instagram and WhatsApp might take a hit"
> I would expect this to drive users away from Instagram and WhatsApp.
Right, and this particular population probably doesn't care about transparency in this specific regard all that much.
It may sound like a great outcome to you. It does sound like a great outcome to me. But there are many, many millions of people who don't share our perspective who feel like they'd be losing a community rather than gaining freedom by leaving.
We’re talking about the name of a mobile app.
I don't get this logic. I'm old enough to remember when both Instagram and WhatsApp were independent companies.
It makes sense as a typically clumsy move as it’s embarrassingly obvious pre-scrutiny posing.
It is difficult to see how this could improve Instagram and WhatsApp's image though.
Generally speaking, it seems like the majority of the people are talk to only have bad things to say about Facebook (the product), and positive things to say about Facebook's (the company) other products such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Seems like they would want to keep these brands are separated as possible.
Maybe he is not talking about users but about investors ?
Golden Handcuff periods ended.
I think there are niches where the community isn't garbage. If you aggessively curate your feed you can get a decent experience.
Fun story: I used to work in the mobile telecom industry and people were complaining how FB/IG sharing URLs/services broke their attempts to profile customer app usage. That was 2015. That said, using Google I could find references from IG using FB's CDN in 2013.
But SNAP is already heavily overpriced because it showed modest growth after many quarters of declines, thanks to the Baby lens. It’s still continuing to lose increasing sums of money, so I wouldn’t advise this play at all.
that doesn't seem like smart business to me?
If people were using Instagram or WhatsApp over Facebook branded alternatives because they didn't want Facebook to have their information, then all this does is demonstrate that that ship has sailed.
Now that they are already looking at it, I suspect public sentiment may matter less.
I'm tired of dragging my friends around various messaging platforms, but it needs to happen. This will help.