Facebook, one of the most popular social networking, has slowly become more of noise. The original idea where it could have been used for conversation, connecting people seems to be getting lost. It is almost taken over by videos, stuff with people to watch, but soon get tired. I had to uninstall Facebook because all it showed was videos after videos. It looks like Facebook can no more ignore it. Mark Zuckerberg recently shared how Facebook can change in the coming years.
Facebook to introduce auto expiring posts
In his post, he mostly emphasizes on Privacy. Something which is not really on the side of Facebook thanks to thousands of connected apps an services. Facebook wasn’t really at fault when they started it. People did like to share everything. Right from a morning selfie to childbirth to even announcing their date. Things got too far. It took time for everyone to realize that they have shared everything about them to the world.
According to Facebook analysis, users are now also looking for Privacy. Facebook is planning to build something on lines of WhatsApp. The first plan is to make sure it’s secure and then develop more ways for people to interact which includes calls, video chats, businesses, payments.
Messaging System Evolution
It sounds like a messaging system which can integrate almost everything but completely private. Here is an outline to what looks like in the works.
1] Private interactions to make sure one else can see what you share.
2] Encryption: End-to-end encryption prevents anyone — including Facebook.
3] Expiring posts: Whatever you post on Social Network, stays. Facebook plans for Expiring Posts or messages. Users can choose so they can disappear and no longer haunts them. Here are the key points:
- Content automatically expires or is archived over time.
- Messages could be deleted after a month or a year by default. One would have the ability to change the timeframe or turn off auto-deletion for your threads if you wanted
- Limit the amount of time we store messaging metadata.
4] Communicate Across Network: Facebook now owns WhatsApp and Instagram. Messenger is in its core. With phone numbers and email id connected, users will be able to communicate across networks easily and securely.
Say for example if you are Facebook Market place, but your primary way of communication is WhatsApp. Then this feature will allow one to send an encrypted message to someone’s phone number in WhatsApp from Messenger. There will be no need to display your phone number in public.
The second use case can be where you can share stories or status instantly across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. And lastly, with WhatsApp payments in place, one can make payment across platforms. All this can make things seamless, but of course, this will be still walled in Facebook own castle.
A Platform for private sharing
Facebook has heavily invested in the messaging platform. They bought WhatsApp and Instagram, and now it’s all making sense. Billions of users are hooked into the system, and there is more to join. Secure Chat, Payment system cross portability, we could be looking at the evolution of the messaging system aka platforms for private sharing
Facebook plans for this over the next year with a lot of things are already in works. Facebook claims to be taking advice from experts, advocates, industry partners, and governments — including law enforcement and regulators — around the world to get these decisions right.
In my opinion, what we will matter is how well Facebook will be able to turn this into business. Throughout his posts, Zuckerberg has talked about companies and payments. If Facebook goes all out to take over the payment system, it will not be surprising.
