When mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp first emerged in 2009, they looked like a threat to mobile carriers. Mobile operators are at lost due to messaging apps, which host free instant messages through a phone's data connection, which these days is often unlimited. Now these apps are becoming a threat to established social networks too.
Part of the reason is that gradual encroachment of the grey-haired ones on Facebook. Another is what messaging apps have to offer: private chatting with people you are friends with in real life. Instead of passively stalking people you barely know on Facebook, messaging apps promote dynamic real-time chatting with different groups of real-life friends, real life because to connect with them on these apps you will typically already have their mobile number. The trend flies in the face of recurring criticism of young people that their social lives are largely virtual when many more are in fact embracing the virtues of privacy and services like WhatsApp, which shun advertising.
The final, big reason why young people are gravitating towards messaging apps is that many of these apps no longer do just messaging. They are social networks. The best examples come out of Asia, with messaging platforms KakaoTalk (South Korea), WeChat (China) and LINE (Japan). All have a total of millions of users, with WeChat boasting more
than 200 million, and take their services beyond offering straight messaging to games, stickers and music sharing. Often users choose stickers instead of words when they need to express themselves. It's also known to have helped couples get over fights more easily by offering multiple stickers to say sorry.
In the race to become platforms with extra frills, the big exception is WhatsApp. That is a somewhat conservative approach compared to most other messaging platforms, yet WhatsApp is still quietly broadening out. In the same way Facebook first rolled our Facebook Connect in 2008 to allow people to use their profiles to like or comment on other websites, WhatsApp recently unveiled an instruction set known as an API that lets other mobile apps share content through WhatsApp too.
The future for these messaging apps is still uncertain. Some in the industry expect buyouts from big internet companies like Google, which was rumoured to have flirted with WhatsApp earlier this year. Facebook already has its own popular Messenger service, while Apple has iMessage, both are popular, but lack the gaming ambitions of Asian chat apps. Still, it is hard to imagine these players consolidating to create a global social network as big as Facebook.
Written by,
Suzianna Zarei
Article link: http://www.ibtimes.com/whatsapp-snapchat-line-why-mobile-messaging-apps-are-taking-teens-away-facebook-1464804
interesting topic. i agree it'd be hard to fight the major social media networking sites such as facebook or twitter, but really, mobile messaging today is developing so good that in the future we might have conferences through our phones. video conferences on laptop? naaaaaah.
ReplyDeletei still remember back then when i used to be a teenager, all i wanted to do is just to talk and chat with my friends. we didnt have all this apps back then so all i did was to use my house phone and to call my friends and we would just talk for hours. as a teenager, you dont constantly use facebook or twitter 24/7. u use it when u want to get information, update status, upload photos and what not. but messaging apps like Line Whatsapp WeChat and what not, teens will use it constantly to talk and to chat with their friends. it doesnt require you to login or sign in. it is automatically on from your smartphones and we can chat message talk constantly like literally every single seconds. and yes that is what the teenagers are looking for nowadays besides having facebook or twitter account. Whatsapp Line WeChat is what they take with them all the time so that they can get updates and just chat with their friends.
ReplyDeleteYOU WERE A TEENAGER??
DeleteWas i a teenager?
DeleteOn a more serious note, it is true. Instant messaging has become the primary medium or relaying a message to friends or families. Of course if you do this to your boss or lecturer then you are either very close to them or are just... cheapskate. Jokes. Okay but yes. Facebook is slightly outdated now. People don't really focus on FB as the primary medium. In fact, it never really was, to me. If I needed to say something to someone, I would find a more instant way to do it. Hence, whatsapp!
ReplyDelete