Facebook Makes Messenger a Platform 48
Steven Levy writes At Facebook's F8 developer conference, the ascension of the Messenger app was the major announcement. Messenger is no longer just a part of Facebook, but a standalone platform to conduct a wide variety of instant communications, not only with friends, but with businesses you may deal with as well. It will compete with other messaging services such as Snapchat, Line and even Facebook's own WhatsApp by offering a dizzying array of features, many of them fueled by the imagination and self-interest of thousands of outside software developers.
What guarantees of longevity? (Score:5, Interesting)
The core question with running on anybody else's platform, unless they are a regulated carrier somewhere which is required by a law to carry your traffic, is what happens when they change the rules?
Would you be comfortable building your entire business on top of it? What if Facebook imposes new limits or rules that mean you can't use it any more.
I had a conversation with a friend back in 2008-2009 some time over Facebook Messanger. We tried to find it last year. It rembered a chat we had in 2007, then nothing until 2010. It's not your own immutable copy the way that email is. Every new messaging platform claims it will kill email, but funnily enough they never do, because they don't offer what email offers - your own immutable copy and interoperability with everyone else. Email actually is the real distributed social network.
Re:What guarantees of longevity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every new messaging platform claims it will kill email, but funnily enough they never do, because they don't offer what email offers - your own immutable copy and interoperability with everyone else. Email actually is the real distributed social network.
I've never thought of Facebook messenger as anything more than a random web chat, a bolt-on feature of the whole antisocial media site. However, email isn't really a fair comparison, as it doesn't allow actual realtime chat. That's what IRC is for, and you get to keep your logs as you please on your own machine. I guess the same applies to any of the newer IM protocols, as long as it's an independent application you control.
BTW, what would you guys suggest to wean non-technical friends off FB chat, given that IRC might be a little too much hassle with all the servers and keeping their computer on all the time?
Re:What guarantees of longevity? (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW, what would you guys suggest to wean non-technical friends off FB chat,
I don't know... we've gone backwards. We started out with competing and non-compatible IM clients - AIM being the biggest. For a while we were trending toward a bunch of competing but compatible IM clients. Then everyone abandoned IM for SMS. Now they are abandoning SMS for a bunch of competing non-compatible IM clients... just on the phone this time.
I currently have WhatsApp installed for a single friend who insists on using it. It's pretty good - give that one a shot. Sometimes people invite me to a Google Hangout - and that also lets you talk or video chat for free. Viber is another one that works pretty well and gives you free calling. The desktop version does video. I have exactly one friend on that.
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IMHO all of them pale before LINE. Line has free calling, video calling and group chats.
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Android? IOS?
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Yeah, it sucks. That's why I said we've gone backwards.
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Weechat has been a good alternative I have found while I was living behind the great firewall.
But really Messenger and email couldn't be more different. I wouldn't write a long story on messenger. Like wise basic file transfer, video sharing, and VOIP calling is not something I do over email.
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Honestly, I use FB's messaging interchangably with SMS. I don't expect to keep history of either of them. Anything I want to keep gets sent as email.
IRC is great for work. I don't use it for random people though. All my choir and gym friends are on Facebook, and coordinate things through there. I'm not going to cut myself off from that.
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All my choir and gym friends are on Facebook, and coordinate things through there. I'm not going to cut myself off from that.
Incidentally, the only reason I have a FB account is to coordinate art/music projects. However, FB chat is just too unreliable to use for anything too intense. I guess I could go back to the likes of ICQ, which I used to use with the less techy friends back in the day.
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Anything that needs more than FB or SMS I just use email. My email delivers fast, and straight to my watch/phone/ipad/laptop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The watch is more convenient when it's on my wrist, but it doesn't film as well.
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Why would they need to keep their computer on all the time? I run IRC on someone elses server. Can connect to it with any device from pretty much anywhere.
This wouldn't be an issue for the typical /.er, but it's hard to "sell" IRC with all its quirks when they see something like FB chat working without any extra config. Even basic IRC usage needs some setting up with the servers, and running the client on a separate shell account (aka 1960 tech, why would anybody use text terminals in the age of bling) would be rather hardcore.
Of course, the main problem is really about trust: you can receive messages offline only if you choose a third party like FB to sto
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> email isn't really a fair comparison, as it doesn't allow actual realtime chat Are you sure. No reason it can't offer about the same speed as some messenger service. What latency do you see?
I haven't checked the latencies -- there's probably nothing wrong with SMTP itself, but the practical implementations are wildly different, due to different application realms. Email is more like a replacement for snailmail letters, and the infrastructure with multiple server routes and technologies (such as IMAP at the receiving end) is not optimized for simplicity and speed. Conversely, IM is closer to face-to-face talk, and the speed/simplicity is usually realized by minimizing different layers of softw
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facebook is using xmpp, they've just disabled the interaction with non-facebook servers
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BTW, what would you guys suggest to wean non-technical friends off FB chat, given that IRC might be a little too much hassle with all the servers and keeping their computer on all the time?
Google Hangouts does chat and video chat and snapchat image type stuff.
It is multiplatform, unlike Factime or SMS messaging. Not sure if Whatsapp has a PC/Mac client.
I have had messaged delayed for some unknown reason on occasion. But overall, it is very solid.
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Which platform is the only platform with SMS clients?
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What do you mean by SMS clients? Do you mean SMS integration?
I have email and chat. Why would I want SMS to get crippled messages or limit myself to a phone platform?
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Basically, you sign a contract with Facebook that says "OK, Facebook, I'm going to build my infrastructure on top of your platform and I require that you support it for the next 15 years, capiche?"
Facebook may say Yay or Nay. Depending on the answer, you take your business elsewhere.
See? No government intervention required.
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Yeah, indeed. Let me know when somebody has one of those that doesn't have a laughably small pentalty for Facebook if they change their mind and I will completely change my tune.
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First, not all companies are doing fine using services from Oracle, IBM, SAP and Microsoft.
Second, Facebook is different in the same way that Oracle is different and IBM is different and SAP is different. It is not a very convincing argument to say other companies provide services so *this* company's services must be "fine".
and so it goes (Score:3, Insightful)
Already I've seen businesses where the only way to interact with them online is on Facebook. And many people do all online socialization using Facebook too, and don't use email at all.
Whatever happened to the concept of an open internet? Protocols that anybody could write to? Where anyone could run their own server if they wanted?
The internet doesn't route around censorship if it's all centralized and proprietary.
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You're being pretty hard on AOL aren't you?
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A lot of online comment sections use facebook too - if you're not a facebook member, you simply don't get to comment.
It's a very strange way to do business. Stupid, even.
Yet another platform? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a new icon, one that shows zuckerberg with a borg assimilation upgrade ala the Bill Gates one; Seriously.
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The Bill Gates one went away awhile ago, to be replaced with the
"Microsoft" logo that I remember on Word for MS-DOS and the Windows 3.1 era.
I think that part of the Diceification of Slashdot was involved. We're all professional and stuff now (except for the people who edit and post stories)
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Why because he's added a VoIP service to the text messaging feature in Facebook.