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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to integrate the company's messaging platforms – WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger – reaffirming its control over the company's various business activities. time when she is bombarded by scandals. The plan was described by four sources involved in discussions with the American newspaper "New York Times". The idea, they said, is to let the applications run independently, but with the unified messaging infrastructure.
This effort involves thousands of company employees, who will have to reconfigure the operation of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. The work is still underway and should be completed by the end of the year or early 2020. Zuckerberg also ordered all applications to incorporate end – to – end encryption. , which limits access to the message content only to the sender and the recipient.
With change, a Facebook user can, for example, send a decrypted message to a WhatsApp user. Today, this is not possible because applications run on separate systems. The goal is to increase the utility of social networks, by keeping its billions of users even more involved in the ecosystem. According to sources, it would be trying to keep users away from rival applications such as Apple and Google because if users were interacting more frequently with Facebook apps, they would generated more advertising revenue.
In a statement, Facebook said it wanted to "create the best messaging experiences possible, and people want message exchanges to be fast, simple, reliable and private," adding that the company "is working to improve our end-to-end encrypted products and is looking for ways to facilitate communication between friends and families."
By bringing together messaging platforms, Zuckerberg is abandoning the policy of maintaining WhatsApp and Instagram as independent businesses within the conglomerate. At the time of their acquisition, the executive had promised WhatsApp and Instagram total operating autonomy. According to a source, since the acquisition, the two companies have developed a lot, which resulted in a change of position Zuckerberg. Now, the general manager believes that the integration will eventually benefit the entire "family of applications" Facebook.
Release of the founders of the applications
But the change of position has led to significant losses for the company. Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Brazilian Mike Krieger left Facebook abruptly, as did co-founders WhatsApp, Jan Koum and Brian Acton. Dozens of WhatsApp executives recently met Zuckerberg about plans to integrate internal messaging systems and at a meeting in December.
Zuckerberg argues that integration will bring benefits, but for users, the move raises even more questions about privacy and data sharing between departments. Today, WhatsApp only needs a phone number to register on the platform, while Facebook requires the presentation of the true identity. With sharing, this information will need to be referenced.
"As expected, there are many discussions and debates as we embark on the long process of defining how it will work," said Facebook in its statement.
For Facebook, the change offers better billing prospects with Instagram and WhatsApp, which still generate little revenue, even with a large number of users. Instagram has 1 billion users and WhatsApp, 1.5 billion. However, according to the sources, Zuckerberg still does not have a clear plan on how to take advantage of the integration of services. But a more engaged public opens up opportunities for new advertising models or services.
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