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Facebook Messenger Hits 1B Monthly Active Users, Accounts For 10 Percent Of All VoIP Calls (techcrunch.com)

Speaking of instant messaging and VoIP call apps, Facebook announced on Wednesday that Facebook Messenger has hit the 1 billion monthly active users milestone. The company adds that Messenger is just more than a text messenger -- in addition to the ambitious bot gamble, a digital assistant, and the ability to send money to friends -- Messenger now accounts for 10 percent of all VoIP calls made globally. Messenger's tremendous growth also underscores Facebook's mammoth capture of the world. The social network is used by more than 1.6 billion people actively every month. WhatsApp, the chat client it owns, is also used by more than one billion people.

TechCrunch has a brilliant story on the growth of Messenger from the scratch.

55 comments

  1. Good to hear it's brilliant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Saves me some reading to find out.

    1. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      All I know....

      I'm not on it, or part of it, and proudly never have messed with FB.

      I heard something from Dennis Miller the other night that caught my ear:

      "Never have lives less lived been more chronicled."

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I'm not on it, or part of it, and proudly never have messed with FB.

      And yet you're surprisingly eager to share this detail of your life with anyone who bothers surfing on Slashdot. This always amuses me about those people proud to not be on a social network often because they don't want to put up with or don't understand why others would share mundane things insist on sharing these details.

    3. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

      This is Slashdot, where you have to burnish your nerd badge with the blood of mindless tech sheep daily in order to maintain relevance.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    4. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      And yet you're surprisingly eager to share this detail of your life with anyone who bothers surfing on Slashdot. This always amuses me about those people proud to not be on a social network often because they don't want to put up with or don't understand why others would share mundane things insist on sharing these details.

      Actually, my primary objection to social media, especially FB, is the abhorrent privacy issues involved with those sites. If nothing else, I'd rather just not feed their data collection engine voluntarily with my private data points.

      I can actually see where it would be fun and useful in some circumstances, ESPECIALLY if you are running a business, but to me the tradeoff is not worth it.

      I'd actually think about joining FB if I could get a business site ONLY...and not have to also have a personal account first....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    5. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by JackieBrown · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of this college humor clip

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    6. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're quoting Dennis Miller as words of wisdom? Wow, I feel sorry for you.

    7. Re:Good to hear it's brilliant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because you're a goddamned idiot. Save your pity for the defective children your copious sperm-bank donations might unfortunately father someday

  2. WhatsApp by LichtSpektren · · Score: 1

    I'm not exactly sure why Facebook owns both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. In any case, if I understand correctly, WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption by default, whereas for Facebook Messenger you have to manually opt for a "private" conversation to get EtEE. It would be best if they deprecated the latter in favor of the former.

    1. Re:WhatsApp by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Why continue to develop what you already have with developers you already employ? Why not spend billions of dollars acquiring software and engineers you don't need? You have to think like an executive. If they aren't "buying" stuff they aren't important. There is a reason that Facebook has 13,000 employees now. It has nothing to do with the business.

    2. Re:WhatsApp by invictusvoyd · · Score: 1

      WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption by default

      What is the use of end to end encryption if a malicious app can read your keystrokes.

      ____________________
      What good is a phone call Mr. Anderson , if you are unable to speak.

    3. Re: WhatsApp by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      Because servants are their own reward.

      The goal of business isn't to generate wealth, it's to control your fellow man.

      It's good to be King.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    4. Re:WhatsApp by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      WhatsApp covers a somewhat different market segment. One of its strong points is that accounts are (in most cases) tied to phone numbers. This makes it an attractive option for mobile phone users: the app instantly knows who on your contact list is also using Whatsapp. When the service was launched, this made the switch from SMS rather painless, since there was no need to add existing contacts manually into a new list. Whatsapp probably has a fair slice of those users who do not, for whatever reason, have a FB account. They could drop Whatsapp in favor of Messenger, but they risk losing those customers. Instead, why not keep both and datamine the crap out of both market segments?

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    5. Re:WhatsApp by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 1

      Why continue to develop what you already have with developers you already employ? Why not spend billions of dollars acquiring software and engineers you don't need? You have to think like an executive. If they aren't "buying" stuff they aren't important. There is a reason that Facebook has 13,000 employees now. It has nothing to do with the business.

      I doubt they cared very much about the software or the developers in the valuation. In that respect I think we agree; they didn't really need those things. What they needed and what they bought was 1 billion active users.

      --

      Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

    6. Re:WhatsApp by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I'm not exactly sure why Facebook owns both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger

      Why they want to own both markets or why their code bases didn't immediately converge? Both seem like rhetorical questions.

      It seems very likely that, over time, both will share a core messaging base. If they have different skins on them at that point, it will be for market segmentation purposes.

      The Signal protocol is currently limited to three devices. That doesn't suit the Messenger model well. Messenger's e2e is limited to one device right now. That's obviously a problem still, but might keep some people from jumping to Wire.

      The double ratchet is a good idea, but until these things get federated, the market is going to remain a mess. Corporate silos aren't good for the Internet's security.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    7. Re:WhatsApp by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You have to think like an executive.

      Something you're not capable of. You brush this off as a failed acquisition rather than a successful market capture. For anyone not using Messenger Facebook has WhatsApp. Developers or competing products have nothing to do with it as long as money is funnelled into the same final account.

    8. Re:WhatsApp by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I didn't say it was "failed" (even though it is). They spent $19 BILLION on a company that has no profit, and maybe around $800 million in revenue. Just for "market capture". Except many WhatsApp users also used Facebook Messenger, so you are "capturing" people you have already "caught". For a fraction of that they could have built WhatsApps features into their platform and competed. But for an executive with too much cash, it is more fun to acquire and bloat the company some more.

    9. Re:WhatsApp by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      But many/most of those active users already used Facebook as well. So they paid $18 billion to get a small increment of users? These acquisitions are driven by ego, not business sense.

    10. Re:WhatsApp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Building the whatsapp features would never have been a problem. WhatsApp isn't complicated, and was achieved with a pretty small team. Facebook didn't acquire WhatsApp for the people or the technology. It was acquired entirely for the market, so your "for a fraction of the cost" point is irrelevant. They could not have achieved what they spent the money to achieve for a fraction of the cost.

    11. Re:WhatsApp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they bought was 1 billion contact lists.

      Have you ever seen what WhatsApp does to your contacts? It raids them regularly.

    12. Re:WhatsApp by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Because Facebook's userbase is limited primarily to only a few countries. WhatsApp basically has the rest.

      By having both, Facebook basically has an almost world wide monopoly on messenger services.

      https://www.similarweb.com/blo...

  3. Just metadata? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can the contents of your phone calls be used for ad fodder now?

  4. Standards by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

    Or complete and utter lack of them. Wake me when they start support xmpp/sip for txt and voice.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
    1. Re:Standards by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The wonderful thing about taking the noble stance on this issue is ... the silence of no one being able to communicate with you.

      Open standards would be nice, but until that happens WhatsApp / Messenger / Skype are on my phone to stay.

    2. Re:Standards by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      Actually do just fine without whatsapp and skype I just refuse messenger calls and use a third party app on the pc/phone.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    3. Re:Standards by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Yeah I find it easier to not make it difficult for people to contact me.

    4. Re:Standards by chrish · · Score: 1

      On the third hand, it's really freakin' annoying that I don't use any of the apps you've listed, and yet I've got three messenger apps open at all times (BBM, Hangouts, Slack), with Signal on there as well (although texts are rare for me).

      At least I can run Hangouts and Slack on my laptop too, but man, I miss the days of being able to communicate with "everyone" using one app, even if it needed several connections.

      Laptop's got Adium running for IRC and XMPP as well. At least those are the open standards, but it's still at least three messenger apps going.

      Get off my lawn, etc. but I remember how irritating this was the first time around with MSN, GTalk, AIM, and all the others.

      --
      - chrish
  5. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The summary has to link to the Skype story right below it?

  6. I feel like an idiot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I never in the World thought facebook would EVER be this powerful in the advertising business.

    All those messages and everything - ADVERTISEMENT! Even if you don't see it - it's data.

    1. Re: I feel like an idiot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a bs metric. FB gets away with plugging rubbish stats and people just suck it up. VOIP is mostly used for business. The truth of the matter is FB cannot physically compete in this marketplace an their claims are baseless. Sorry.

  7. Check everyone's pipes for lead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    Because apparently people are getting stupider and stupider. Headline should read:

    Facebook Messenger Spies On 1B Monthly Active Users, Accounts For 10 Percent Of All Surveilled VoIP Calls

  8. Facebook is your friend. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Facebook is your friend.
    Facebook watches over you.
    Everybody loves Facebook.
    Trust Facebook.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Facebook is your friend. by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      You forgot:

      Work will set you free.

  9. Re:Dumb F*cks by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

    i know some old people who use it to call internationally for free to catch up or take care of some family matters like cleaning up grave sites. should they be afraid of the NSA as well?

  10. Re:Dumb F*cks by jareth-0205 · · Score: 2

    It has 1 use.
    Lets you filter your idiot friends, if they ask you to use it, you know they aren't worth knowing!

    And reading the techcrunch arse licking, tells me they are not worth reading.

    The number 1 problem is it takes over your phone, the nosy facefuckers are grabbing everything....

    Must be exhausting being so superior all the time. I'm sure your friends appreciate your constant judgement of them.

  11. from the scratch! by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

    TechCrunch has a brilliant story on the growth of Messenger from the scratch.

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
  12. Re:Dumb F*cks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1 less idiot here!
    I closed my account a month ago.
    That'll teach 'em!

  13. Re:Dumb F*cks by thegarbz · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yeah what idiots using a messaging platform with voip, video chat, file sharing, all rolled into one that doesn't blow anywhere near as many goats as most of the alternatives. What where those 1billion people thinking!

  14. Re:Dumb F*cks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone should be afraid of the NSA. No exceptions.

  15. just more than! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The company adds that Messenger is just more than a text messenger

  16. So am I just old if I just send SMS texts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And don't understand why I would ever need a messaging app?

  17. Re:Dumb F*cks by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    I'm sure your friends appreciate your constant judgement of them.

    You're talking about a guy who dismisses 1/7th of the population of the world as not worth knowing. What makes you think this guy has any friends at all.

  18. Re:Dumb F*cks by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

    But it doesn't meet the exacting specifications of nerds, so therefore must be thrown out completely. 1 Billion users is irrelevant in this case.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  19. Does User = Unique Person? by eepok · · Score: 1

    I'm always suspicious of the term "User" when people say they have X number of users. Does "user" mean unique people? Does it mean "account"?

    Because I have a hard time believing that 1/7 of the world population is actively on Facebook and I also know full well that there are millions of bot accounts whose likes are purchased.

    1. Re:Does User = Unique Person? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, they could be counting any like-button click as a `use'. And I can certainly imagine a billion unique browsers clicking such a button every day. (phone, computer, etc.,)

      from the sampling of ``how many of you use Facebook'' in a computer science class (college level, NYC), only about 10% of the hands went up. So they're done as a company---only way they'll get more users is by breeding more bots.

  20. Worse: Destroy standarts by DrYak · · Score: 2

    The situation is even worse:

    They are in the process of destroying standards.

    At some point in the past, Facebook used to have a XMPP gateway into their chat system. You could use it with (e.g.: Pidgin) and have the chat into your desktop computer (or phone if your smartphone supports XMPP, etc).

    But eventually, Facebook dropped their XMPP support.

    (Luckily for 3rd party support, pidgin developers have reverse engineered their JSON and XML based protocol used by the android application. So you can still use pidgin and any other application supporting libpurple plugins. But it's NOT a standard
    And at least the Facebook company seems to be happy with this situation and let the pidgin dev continue their work).

    WhatsApp is even worse. It *started* as a variant of XMPP/Jabber, then got progressively weirder (mainly, they use a different type of authentication protocole, and use a binary representation + phrase book to compress common XML structure to make it a binary ML).
    These modification to the basic XMPP Jabber have been reverse engineered... ...but WhatsApp (even after the acquisition by Facebook) seem to be on a cursade to sue as many developpers of alternative clients as possible, and to prevent any development by kick-banning any detected alternative clients and perma-banning the corresponding GSM number. (e.g.: see the complains around WhatsUp alternative client for Sailfish OS).

    And they are now further alienating their user base by forcing everybody to use only exclusively the Android or the iOS version.
    By the end of the year, all other version (BlackBerry, Nokia, etc.) will be dropped, and their user left without any chance.
    I undestand that they would like to concentrate effort on only the 2 most frequent platforms, which probably cover ~90% of their user base, but even it they don't develop an app, they could have left some API (e.g.: an XMPP gateway like facebook used to use before throwing it away) so that the "left behind" could at least use native 3rd party apps.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  21. Re:Dumb F*cks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mmm, rather have 1 good intelligent friend than a 1000's dumb fucks who I don't really know telling me about the shit they had.

  22. If you think 6 out of 7 people are worth knowing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    let alone being friends with, you're an indiscriminate, crowd-following social bug and/or just lonely as shit.

    Maybe if you had better quality friends, you'd need less than 6/7ths of the world

  23. Re:Dumb F*cks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if your software is making you blow goats, your doing it wrong

  24. Does not surprise me by brunes69 · · Score: 1

    I used to be an ardent user of Hangouts for VOIP and video calls home. Depending on quality of the hotel wifi, it was spotty, but usually worked OK. One trip it was on the fritz, so I tried Facebook instead. The voice and video quality was noticeably better. I switched back and forth between thema few times after, and every time, Facebook had far better quality on average. I no longer use Hangouts at all. I am not sure if the difference is in the protocol stack or in the compression algorithm, but at the end of the day, as a user I don't really care - what I care about is seeing my family clearly and having them hear me clearly, and Facebook Messenger is pretty much the best alternative to Skype in this regard. The difference of course is nearly everyone in the world already has Messenger installed, whereas Skype is an extra thing to ask people to load.

  25. Zuckerberg Israelberg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then your voice patterns are directly linked to your personal profile and all internet traffic. Finances, porn, etc. One stop spy shop.

    No need to phone Google for voice pattern, just hey we have it ok thanks Agent Smith.

    life's a bitch payback is a mother fucker.

  26. One billion? by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 1

    The world population is 7.4 billion.

    Facebook cannot have 1 billion active Messenger users.

    I think they might be counting daily usage, so someone who is on Facebook every day will count as 28-31 "users".

  27. Re:Dumb F*cks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they should be afraid of this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/20/silver_tongue_hacker_shows_how_one_home_address_can_lead_to_ruin/