Much has been said about what
Facebook’s (
FB) new initiative means for app developers. But after
today’s Facebook Home unveiling, it’s clear that there is one very specific app category that is Facebook’s current obsession: messaging apps. It is safe to say nobody expected two years ago that the popularity of
WhatsApp, VINE and KakaoTalk would explode the way it did.
WhatsApp hit 11 billion outbound messages on New Year’s Eve; China-driven WeChat has hit 300 million users; Korean KakaoTalk has reached 80 million users. All of these messaging platforms have created a surge of interest in group chats and photo-sharing — features that just happen to encroach on Facebook’s core territory. Even worse, Asian messaging apps have started morphing into social game hubs and WhatsApp is expected to launch an ambitious game initiative later in 2013. Today represented Facebook’s counterattack on these pesky messaging upstarts.
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