Messenger to be required for sending/receiving messages on Facebook

Although Facebook has made the purchase of Whatsapp for $16 billion, it seems keen on keeping Messenger by itself, and is even planning to separate it from the regular Facebook, a move which will be effective beginning this week.

Starting this week, whoever wants to message his friends on Facebook will have to do it via the dedicated Messenger app. That means you will no longer be able to message people straight from Facebook, and will have to download the 30+ MB, running in the background app.

Why would Facebook make such a move? While it's obvious it wants people to be hooked into Messenger, and having them do it only via the app will surely keep them more engaged, it wouldn't hurt to leave the option on the regular website, as in my experience the apps tends to waste some RAM in the background and weights around 30 MB. 

Facebook's official reason was that on Facebook, users tend to reply 20% faster. Hmmmmm. Hardly sufficient, but whatever. Whether you like it or not, that's reality beginning next week, and in case you want to, and have yet to download the Messenger app, you can get it right here:

Facebook Messenger (Playboard) | Facebook Messenger (Play Store)

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Facebook Messenger to start making money, unclear exactly how

When Facebook hired PayPal president David Marcus a couple months ago, to serrve as the company's Messaging unit's VP, it was clear it had some plans in the future to turn Messenger to a profitable application, after for all its existence it has so far been pure and ad-free. 

According to Mark Zuckerberg's past statement, the plan was to get 100 million users and afterwards begin cashing in. Well, they now hold by themselves over 200 million users, and when you include the newly-acquired WhatsApp and its half a billion active users, you are already cruising past Zuckerberg's plans.

This might especially worry Whatsapp users who were worried by the potential of the Facebook acquisition turning it to an ad-ridden platform, and might not justify themselves. Well, according to Zuckerberg, who addressed the matter in the Q2 Facebook conference call, it will be a very though out process, and is still in early stages. According to him, it will be directed at the long-term, without any eye-popping ads, but rather something more sophisticated and less disturbing.

Will they stay true to their word?

Since it won't be happening anytime soon, no reason to worry yet. Anyways, keep in mind these companies do need to turn a profit somehow, so if he makes a sort of intelligent ads, that might not be too bad and perhaps necessary. What do you think? Are your nightmares coming true, or is this not such-big-of-a-deal? Tell us below! 

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