> But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been frustrated that Facebook doesn’t get more credit for the growth of Instagram and WhatsApp. Associating those apps with Facebook could improve the overall companies’ brand with consumers.
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.
I think Zuckerberg is still too idealistic and thinks that Facebook should get “credit.” He needs to start thinking of Facebook more of a holding company like Philip Morris which does all the unethical stuff and takes the fall for it, allowing the consumer brands like Instagram and WhatsApp to remain unscathed.
There are thousands and thousands of farmers in the US, and millions around the world. There are certainly more sources of food items than retail outlets.
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.
You mean hipster eco hand made brands like raw ingredients, such as Eggs, Vegetables etc.? Processed food is unhealthy for the most part anyways, so it is better to avoid it.
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.
> And this was despite it being a paid app at the time (I remember paying a few dollars for lifetime access).
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.
Hard to say, my impression is that WhatsApp got a lot of publicity because of the high acquisition price. I think that contributed to its growth significantly.
The people aware of the acquisition price (or that an acquisition even took place) are likely 3-4 orders of magnitude fewer than the amount of people by which it grew since. Also they were most likely either already users, or were already not using it consciously, and the news wouldn’t sway this. Actually I know of (quite) a few people who removed the app they day Facebook bought it, and now actively preach against it with their acquaintances. It’s actually mostly due to them that I now have Viber, Threema, Telegram and Signal too.
This seems like a smart move. Facebook is getting ahead of potential criticism by regulators that it’s unclear that Facebook owns these properties. Of course we all know that but your average joe probably doesn’t.
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.
> 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.
> 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
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.
> Who wouldn't want more transparency in what products are owned by which companies?
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.
The opposite narratives are just as plausible: it weakens its hold because it -has- to add its name to signal the connection; that it is so poorly intertwined with the core product that they slapped the Facebook name on it; that it’s so unclear that the product is “from Facebook” they have to literally change the name of the product for that express purpose!
It makes sense as a typically clumsy move as it’s embarrassingly obvious pre-scrutiny posing.
Yeah. Neither of the purchases are that old. The chances of you knowing of WhatsApp’s history and not remembering it being an independent company is exceedingly low.
It may be just a name, but Facebook is clearly moving to consolidate/make interoperable Facebook messenger, Instagram direct and WhatsApp. And also bring WhatsApp and Instagram direct into the advertising products it currently has available on Facebook messages like ads, and also the ability to opt into advertiser conversations via those platforms. This is the first step towards those coming changes. They are also merging (or have already maybe partially merged) the infrastructure powering their 3 messaging platforms. So yeah, it’s a name, but these properties are worth many billions of dollars and are only partially monetized right now. So this is a big step toward unlocking the value in instagram and WhatsApp. So yeah, it’s kind of a big deal.
I think is bad for instagram and whatsapp credibility. Facebook has the lowest credibility among the 3 brands. Makes no sense. People literally say i hate fb, thats why i use instagram. And people say, I hate fb messenger, which spies on them.
Is this move ego driven? Instagram and WhatsApp are thriving because they are disassociated from Facebook. I think this can potentially hurt the other two apps.
I like these changes. Some of my friends hate Facebook for various reasons, and making Facebook's ownership very clear (as opposed to buried in some terms and conditions) may encourage them to choose alternative chat software.
> But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been frustrated that Facebook doesn’t get more credit for the growth of Instagram and WhatsApp. Associating those apps with Facebook could improve the overall companies’ brand with consumers.
It is difficult to see how this could improve Instagram and WhatsApp's image though.
Yea, this comment from Zuckerburg seems strange to me or maybe I completely misread how people are currently viewing Facebook as a company?
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.
Zuck does not care of how your think of the company now. The plan here is to blur the lines between the services so he can continue the ongoing quest to hoover all data about you into one place. If it’s all “... by Facebook” people will eventually stop thinking it’s wrong for their messages to feed into an ad platform.
I like instagram still. My friends post pictures of things they are doing and I look at them. Sometimes I post pictures of things I am doing and my friends look at them. What changed?
Noticed last night that images for on Instagram are being served from Facebook's CDN, including the Facebook favicon. I would have thought the smart thing would be to keep a lot of distance from the three brands.
Oculus switched to this pattern early on and the content is delivered from facebook cdn. It must be cost effective to tap into the mothership vast resources.
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.
Well I can't change that, and I can't avoid using it since too many people I know use it exclusively. I can, however, keep from having that filthy Facebook name on my phone.
I mean the same scientists built the V-2 rocket and the Saturn V but I'm glad they swapped the swastika out for an American flag. Looking at the Facebook name every time I open Whatsapp would be like looking at Donald Trump's face every time I select "English" on a website.
You can buy SNAP. That would be the best play to short IG.
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.
wait... there's talk of breaking up tech companies, and a tech company immediately after decides to prominently brand itself on all its (nearly) monopolistic empires?
The assumption is that they are attempting to get ahead of any potential criticism by regulators regarding it being unclear that Facebook owns these brands. It's probably not a consumer-driven decision.
Right but I think the issue would then be that if more people became aware FB owns all these brands, there might be an even larger voter push to get them to be broken up, whereas right now people don't know and this care.
Facebook does own them all, so this is just them disclosing that fact.
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.
Yeah but public sentiment is one of the things driving policy maker to consider breaking up big tech. If Facebook make sits branding even more ubiquitous than it already is that's not going to work in their favor on this issue.
Public perception maybe, but regulator perception may be different - "You are misleading the public, and building a monopoly in an underhand and obfuscated manner. This is a misuse of your position."
Now that they are already looking at it, I suspect public sentiment may matter less.
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.