There have been a number of recent developments in the mobile messaging business, with Facebook receiving its clearance to acquire WhatsApp and its 600m+ users for $19bn, Google rumored to be launching a WhatsApp rival in India, and Yahoo acquiring MessageMe and looking to invest millions in Snapchat. Rumors have also surfaced that Facebook is launching an app that will let users use it anonymously, which clashes with the company’s historical focus on ‘real’ identities.
On the Google front, India’s Economic Times is reporting that Google is planning on launching a messaging app in the country, citing sources close to the project. Although still in the early stages of development, the sources say that it will appear sometime next year and be tested in India and other emerging markets (the key markets for WhatsApp). The app is rumored to be free to use, and will also support voice to text functionality.
A key difference from other Google products will be that the service won’t require a Google account to use – something that Google mandated with its Google+ launch and forced YouTube integration, but from which it is now backtracking amid the failure of it social network to undermine Facebook.
India’s diverse multi-language community means that there will need to multiple flavors of the app for each linguistic community, or at least an app to cater for the 22 official languages of the country (though perhaps not the 1,635 ‘rationalized mother tongues’ recognized by the 2011 census, which would require a rather gargantuan programming initiative).
Google is also paying close attention to India with its Android One platform, which combines a low-cost reference design handset with the Android OS. Speaking to NDTV, Google SVP Sundar Pichai said that India-specific features included in the project include offline availability for YouTube and support for 7 Indian languages in Android L. The launch partners for Android One in India are Karbonn, Micromax and Spice (using its retail partner Flipkart).
Elsewhere, Yahoo has reportedly paid somewhere in the double-digit millions of dollars for upstart messaging app MessageMe – acquiring its team of eight staff and 1m+ users. It is also widely rumored to be imminently investing in Snapchat and its (estimated) 100m+ users, and that Yahoo beat Snapchat to the MessageMe acquisition – after Snapchat was rumored to be buying the app for $30-40m.
MessageMe will shut down on November 7, but apparently picked the Yahoo bid due to an acqui-hire deal that would see its staff taken onboard – likely to work on the rumored Yahoo Instant app or perhaps another messaging platform entirely, given that the MessageMe team is being kept together. Yahoo Messenger, the current messaging app from the company, is currently ranked at number 566 on iTunes according to TechCrunch. If Yahoo wants to get into the messaging game, it looks like it needs a new product and a hefty advertising campaign to do so – which it should be able to afford after its Alibaba windfall.
Adding to the Yahoo-Snapchat rivalry, and to a great extent further confusing it, are reports that Yahoo is close to investing $20m in the next round of funding for Snapchat – a company that rejected a $3bn acquisition offer from Facebook for being too low, despite posting no noticeable revenue. But Yahoo’s investment would value the company at around $10bn, showing that while it’s hard to see where it can make money it was right to say no to Facebook.
Facebook is also rumored to be working on an anonymous communication app; which while a dramatic step away from its traditional policy of tracking users and tying identities to advertising profiles, taps into the post-Snowden world and anti-surveillance sentiment that seems to prevail among consumers – who are subjected to weekly, if not daily, stories about compromised security systems, malicious attacks and government surveillance. In fact, Facebook hasn’t helped itself with its own activities, including the recent drag-queen banning real-names policy and the now-infamous newsfeed psychology experiment.
So it is a little surprising that the anonymity app will be released sometime in the coming weeks – but not at all unsurprising that there are scant details regarding the app’s functionality. According to the unnamed sources, the app is intended to allow current Facebook users to use multiple pseudonyms and identities to interact with other users in ways that they would not want to be tied to their ‘real’ name.
The implementation that springs to mind is fan interaction on music/sports/media/videogame websites. Currently, many websites allow users to post comments using their Facebook identity, but many users may feel uncomfortable posting an opinion that can be traced to their ‘real’ identity on Facebook. This change to grant anonymity would allow Facebook to retain users inside its ecosystem while boosting interaction on discussion pages in forums and on websites – while still allowing Facebook to extract advertising revenue from these anonymous identities.
But the anonymity could also be used to chat with friends and acquaintances in a manner similar to that of Snapchat – where messages and images sent are deleted in a short amount of time and are ephemeral. Pseudonyms that are known to friends could be shared, and the aforementioned interactions facilitated by sharing an alternative identity with a select group of people – invisible to those outside the circle. Letting people speak without fear of repercussions (to an extent) will boost engagement, and that in turn should boost page views and revenues.
Of course, anonymity can serve as a breeding ground for the more unpleasant side of human interaction, something acknowledged by Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox. “The stories of mass impersonation, trolling, domestic abuse, higher rates of bullying and intolerance are often the result of people hiding behind fake names, and it’s both terrifying and sad.” It remains to be seen how Facebook will reconcile its real-name anti-abuse policy with this rumored anonymity app.