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Facebook Messenger Currently Used by 1Bn Monthly Users

July 21, 2016 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

Facebook celebrated July 20 another monster milestone: its home-brewed messaging app Facebook Messenger currently boasts 1 billion monthly active users (MAUs) in nearly all countries of the world.

Analysts said that hitting such a rare milestone is for most tech companies just like hitting the jackpot as chances for it to happen are very slim. However, Facebook had had hit the lottery with two other apps, each having more than 1 billion users every month.

And this is not a small feat, as Facebook currently monopolizes what people use on their phones. It is well known that mobile phone users are keen on just a select number of apps on their devices.

Currently just two tech companies, Facebook and Google, were able to dominate the mobile app world. Analysts noted that the secret recipe for their success is as simple as making an app people want to use over and over again.

Two years ago, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg bought another app that has reached the 1 billion user milestone in the meantime: WhatsApp. Though the price was hefty – $19 billion – the investment paid off in less than three years.

Facebook has another recipe for success it was willing to share with us: it starts to make ad revenue after an app jumps over the 1 billion limit.

Facebook Messenger boss David Marcus was over thrilled with the achievement. Marcus, who joined the firm when Messenger was used by “just” 300 million users, explained that serving and building stuff for $1 billion people is “a great feeling.”

Facebook Messenger was first rolled out in 2011, but it started to gain steam after Facebook shut down the social media platform inbuilt messaging feature. The app’s popularity grew even larger after the company added some extra features such as voice and video calls and the ability to transfer money.

Messenger accrued 100 million users to hit the 1 billion user threshold in just three months. The app’s Android version was downloaded over 1 billion times. Facebook Messenger is also the second-best app for iOS platforms after the Facebook app.

When asked whether the new milestone will mean more ads, Marcus replied that there is no rush to monetize the service yet. He said that after the “real problems” are solved the “other things” would happen naturally.
Image Source: YouTube

USF Professor: Facebook May be Secretly Listening to your Phone Calls

June 4, 2016 By Brandi McCants Leave a Comment

With a billion people checking Facebook 14 times a day, the social media giant may find it hard to not listen to people’s conversations as to improve ad targeting like no other rival company can.

Prof. Kelli Burns, a social media specialist at the University of South Florida, believes that the Orwellian nightmare is unfurling just under our nose. Burns thinks that the company is now gathering intelligence for advertisement purposes. And she has evidence.

The professor noted that people are addicted to Facebook which makes the social networking giant’s work even easier. An average Facebook user doesn’t have an attention span longer than 2 seconds.

You can see people checking their notifications almost everywhere. But surprisingly, Facebook has access not only to what you post but also to what you listen, speak, or look at, the professor says.

“Anything that you’re doing on your phone, Facebook is watching,”

Burns said

And listening, according to the expert. It is enough to have the microphone enabled in your app’s settings to wave goodbye to privacy. The company itself said in a disclaimer that it accessed user microphone to learn what movies or music they watch or listen to.

But the situation is far creepier. Burns said that Facebook looks for some key words in your conversations to better target ads. Once one such word pops up, the app quietly places a related advertisement or story in your Facebook feed.

Burns agreed to test the theory in a recent interview. She enabled the microphone feature and initiated a random phone conversation. During the conversations she brought up her life-long wish of visiting Africa in a safari.

Less than a minute later, a story about an African safari appeared on her Facebook page randomly. Because she said that she would like to visit the continent in a jeep, a car ad also popped up.

While some may say it is a coincidence, other users have reported similar incidents. The USF expert cautioned that from the moment you agree to their terms and conditions anything can happen.

In response, Facebook dismissed the rumors by saying that it truly didn’t use its users’ microphones to target ads or tweak the News Feed. The site said that it only collected data from people’s posts and profile information for that purpose.

Image Source: Flickr

New Google Allo Social App

May 19, 2016 By Nicholas Anderton Leave a Comment

Google Allo Presentation at I/O

Yesterday at the I/O developer conference, Google launched a new product called Allo. It is the company’s attempt at creating a social messaging application.

Despite having an offer of over seven communication-related products that reach a billion users, including the web browser Chrome, Android, Gmail, Maps, Google Play, Buzz, Wave, and Google+, a social application like Allo has never quite been one of them.

Allo is based on telephone numbers, just like most modern day messenger apps, and it has the Google brains behind it which means it comes with the machine learning technology integrated.

The application has this interesting feature called the Smart Reply, a feature quite similar to Google Inbox, which will learn what kind of replies you usually give and prompt you with them accordingly. Chatbots feel the same, but these artificially intelligent answers are much more high-tech and time-saving.

The key cool new thing you can now do with Allo, however, is searching whatever you want within the app; there’s no need to leave it and search the information you’re looking for in a browser, you can just do your Google search from within Allo.

Amit Fulay, the product manager, working on the app said people are probably moving from one app to another to get more information “and the core of communicating (…) gets lost in that deluge of information.” But not anymore; not with their newest app.

Google Allo looks a bit like the Facebook messenger. By now, Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger have totaled almost 2 billion users. Erik Kay, the lead engineer for Allo, says mobility is where people are spending the majority of their time.

The app also has the same learning networks that work behind Google Photos; you can share photos directly from the camera roll. Sticker packs are also available, and another hot feature is the ability to change the size of the text you send by dragging an arrow up or down, making your lines “whispered” or “shouted.” Also, an incognito mode keeps your privacy private.

Another novelty Google has launched is Google Duo, an app similar to Facetime, that comes with a twist – when someone calls you through Duo you get a live preview of the people calling you and what the call will be all about.

Image Source: Droid-Life

Facebook Messenger Now Working as an Airline Customer Service App Too

March 31, 2016 By Brandi McCants Leave a Comment

While Facebook had revealed its plans to start incorporating its new framework for Businesses on Messenger sometime last year, we had yet to see a realistic application of it. However, now marks the moment when the tech giant is finally putting its framework to good use and expanding its messenger app into a new area; the first business to have its services be made available through Facebook Messenger is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and will begin functioning as such starting today.

To be more precise, travelers will be able to request and access information regarding their flights, board passes, check-in times, flight times and a whole lot more using the Messenger app using the bot that rests behind the operation at any time. Anyone who books a flight ticket on the KLM website may opt to receive information via messenger KLM through the use of a single thread.

KLM is proud to be the first business that uses the Facebook Messenger business framework for commercial and social media strategy purposes, according to their Facebook page, and is excited to see how the public receives this new type of customer service option. Meanwhile, Vice President of Messaging Products David Marcus has stated that this type of service is a method of removing stress and the complications of air travelling by providing customers with a medium through which anyone can easily request for specific information.

It would appear that KLM has had this platform for customer service in mind for a fair while as some preparation revealed that air travel is an area where messenger-based applications would flourish. KLM president and CEO Peter Elbers mentioned in a statement that the company has noticed a 40 percent increase in customer interactions via Facebook after it activated the Messenger button last year. Now the company is taking this type of customer service a step further after revealing that airline customers feel comfortable sharing information via a more personal platform such as Facebook’s Messenger.

Meanwhile, Facebook seems to be planning other service applications such as in-app purchases and encrypted conversations. According to The Information website, the iOS version of the Messenger app already currently supports in-person payments and extra encryption for private and secure chats. However, when asked about the probability of these types of services becoming available for Businesses on Messenger, Facebook refrained from making comments that would suggest its imminence. Instead, they announced that they have nothing of the sorts in store at this time but that it may become a plan for the future.

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Top Ten Apps of the Year

December 22, 2015 By Mary Duncan Leave a Comment

Apple,Google and Facebook dominate the top 10 apps list of 2015.

This year’s top ten apps of the year list has been published. Not surprising, Facebook topped the list with more than 126 million users every month. YouTube followed in closely with 97 million users while Facebook Messenger finished in third place with 96 million users.

Google’s apps claim five top places with YouTube in the second place, Google Search in the fourth place, Google Play in the fifth place, Google Maps in the sixth place and Gmail in the seventh place.

Google is not the only one with more than one app in the top. Apple also has a lot of top apps with Apple Music in the ninth place and Apple Maps in the tenth position.

On the other hand, Facebook not only occupies the first position but it also has two apps on the list, with Facebook Messenger in the third position and Instagram on the eighth. The 126 million people who used Facebook monthly is a great achievement, considering the fact that no other app surpassed the 100 million users mark this year. Facebook Messenger had the biggest growth in 2015 with a 31% increase of users, Facebook increased with only 8% and Instagram’s users increased with 23%.

Every month, approximately 55 million people used Instagram. Since Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, its popularity grew a lot and this year it was voted as Apple’s best app for the latest iPhone released.

Google had the most apps in the list, proving that an app doesn’t have to be designed by Facebook or Apple in order to be extremely successful. Facebook wasn’t the only one breaking a record this year. YouTube also had about 97 million monthly users breaking its previous record.

Experts say that in 2016, YouTube could surpass Facebook, especially with the new subscription service that will allow you to watch videos without any commercials.

80% of the Americans now own a smartphone. People either own an iPhone(42,7%) or an Android(42,7%) or a Blackberry(0,7%).

Apple Music was launched in the music streaming market in June and since then it has been under constant debate. The smartphone app did extremely well, putting Apple’s apps twice in this year’s list. Every month, 54 million people use the streaming service and it is expected that by the end of the year, it will have 8 million paying subscribers. The list ends with Apple Maps, whose subscribers increased with 16%.

Whether you’re an iPhone or Android owner, feel free to choose from the top ten apps of the year. Their only job is to make your life a lot easier.

Image Source: www.pixabay.com

Apple Music Has 54,5 million Users a Month

December 22, 2015 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

Apple Music is a streaming service in direct competition with Spotify.

With the end of 2015 nearby, a new list of the top smartphone apps has been released. In the top three are Facebook, Youtube and Facebook Messenger. Although being the ninth on the top ten list, Apple Music has 54,5 million users a month. It is important to know that the number does not refer to the actual subscribers but to the average users.

The surprising amount of people who used the app were counted from the January to October 2015. The number proves a considerate growth, being having with 26% more users than last year. The escalation of the number was surpassed only by the growth of the famous Facebook Messenger app.

In October, the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, revealed that approximately 15 million people were using their service, while only 6,5 million people were actual subscribers. One month later though, on November 11, Apple Music became available on the Android operating system and the numbers changed for the better.

Apple Music can now be used on tablets and mobile phone, since it officially became an Android app. There are some features that are not available for Android. For example, music videos cannot be accessed and the family option plan isn’t available like it is for Apple devices. The family package is highly requested because for inly 14,99$ up to six people can gain access to the service every month. The streaming service is available in a lot of countries, China excepted.

The subscription to the service is 9,99 $ a month, a low price to pay in order to be able to listen to as much music as you want, on what device you prefer. If you don’t have much money at the moment you can try the three month trial offered by Apple for free. You can also listen to some radio stations like Beats 1. The app also has some social features that were designed in order to get the fans and the musicians closer together.

Although the library of Apple Music is not as big as the iTunes one, it contains 30 million songs and is growing every day.

There is a new section that shows you the top charts, new musicians and bands, new song releases and music videos. This improved section will make it easy for you to find out what’s new and hot every day.

Apple Music’s biggest competitor is Spotify, the Swedish music stream service launched 7 years ago. While Apple has 54,5 million users, Spotify has 75 million users and 20 million subscribers and it will take a lot of work for Apple to take the number one position from them.

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WhatsApp hits 350 million active monthly users

October 23, 2013 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

WhatsApp has become the global powerhouse of the messaging world and it is continuing to grow at an exponential rate, hitting 350 million active monthly users a few days ago and announcing the news at Nokia’s World event in Abu Dhabi.

The news comes just before BBM announced 10 million users in 24 hours and may have been a little taunt attack at BlackBerry, showing while they have early dominance of the iOS and Android store chart they have a long way to go before they can match WhatsApp.

WhatsApp does not make a lot of revenue and the single first purchase is the only way to grab income. The app has made around $300 million since its inception, since every download is $1 to the developers. WhatsApp does not have ads on the application and has said they will not add any in the future.

This does make WhatsApp a little less profitable and we expect BBM to add advertisements and premium add-ons for users. This will make BlackBerry a whole lot of revenue with the new ten million users and the fifty million more expected by the end of the year.

The 350 million WhatsApp users may be a great achievement, but there is one messaging app with more active users that cannot be stopped: Facebook. The social network currently has over one billion users and almost all of them use messaging to contact friends.

WhatsApp may dive into a new era, perhaps a redesign of their application or some new additional features for users. The WhatsApp interface is still old iOS and the developers have not done anything to really excite users in an age.

As the messaging app comes to more platforms, we really need to see new features before we become impressed, especially with the new competition from BBM and the moves Facebook and other messaging apps are making to try and make their service better.