Mark Zuckerberg explains the need for a separate Facebook Messenger app

Facebook’s decision to strip messenger out of its main mobile app was not met with much enthusiasm by an awful lot of people, and during a public Q&A Mark Zuckerberg actually explained why this happened.

According to the Facebook CEO, the purpose of the Facebook app was for people to check their newsfeed. What actually happened was people began using it for messaging each other.

He explained that the experience of using the main app to send messages was causing friction when it was compared to dedicated messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage, the former of which is now owned by Facebook.

“Even though it was a short term, painful thing to ask folks to install a separate messaging app, we knew that we could never deliver the quality of experience as just a tab inside the main Facebook app. . . We’re trying to build a service that’s good for everyone. Because Messenger is faster and more focused, if you’re using it, you respond to messages faster,”

I’m sure that there were great intentions there, but if people were happy with what was available why force them to switch to something else? Encourage them to switch, sure, but not everybody is willing to do that — as explained by the negative response to the Facebook Messenger app.

Image: Jason McELweenie via Wikimedia Commons