Facebook's Plan to merge Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger

Facebook is planning to merge and integrate its messaging services on Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Facebook – the social media giant owns all three social media platforms. And, it has revealed its plans to make it possible for the users of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram to send messages across these apps without the need to switch between apps. However, the three will remain separate as standalone apps at a much deeper level despite merging into a single messaging service or protocol.

In simple words, the ‘merger’ would help the users of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger to send messages from one of Facebook’s messaging services to another, i.e. WhatsApp-only users could speak to their Instagram and Messenger friends without leaving WhatsApp. 

Work on the project to unify the “messaging infrastructure” has already started, but Facebook has said that it’s still trying to figure out the details. And it is at the very start of a long process. It is expected to include end-to-end encryption, which is already one of the defining privacy features of WhatsApp and something that Instagram lacks currently. End-to-end encryption allows the conversion of your message into gibberish when its transit, which can only make sense and be read by senders and recipients.

"We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable, and private," said Facebook’s spokesperson in a statement. "We're working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks."

These new plans also highlight how Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook is wielding more control over the platforms Facebook has acquired over the years for billions of dollars. In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion and WhatsApp for $19 billion, in 2014. Some of the founders have left after conflicts with Zuckerberg; the list includes Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger – the Instagram co-founders, Brian Acton, and Jan Koum – co-founders of WhatsApp, and Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe of Oculus.

With the integration of these apps, Facebook will be able to generate more money from advertising since the users will spend more time communicating in its messaging service rather than switching to other messaging services by Google and Apple.

It is still not yet clear what user data will be shared among the three apps. The integration between the apps is expected to be brought in as soon as the end of 2019 or early 2020. Nonetheless, with bigger features like end-to-end encryption, we know it will take time.

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