Facebook to Show Ads on Messenger to Bolster Revenue Growth | Hacker News Reader

Facebook to Show Ads on Messenger to Bolster Revenue Growth

wsj.com

Yet another reason to uninstall Facebook, if you haven't done so already. I want a social network that lets me be social when I want, without forcing it down my throat (never ending birthday notifications were the final straw for me).

..its in messenger, which is a required separate install, that I don't install, so I'm safe

The website is pretty bad too, but ads are easy to block and it gives Facebook less rights on your device (as opposed to native app).

It's an option, but now I just use WhatsApp. I have a small number of groups for the people I care about, and now that WhatsApp has better archiving, I find it quite a pleasant user experience. I can even see photos someone shared to my group more than a year ago. I find Facebook redundant, because I don't aspire to be a pseudo-celebrity amongst people who hardly know me!

I can't use Facebook with all the ads and noise. I've blocked mine down to just the news feed, everything else goes away. Much cleaner and easier to use.

You can turn notifications off...

I tried, but the birthday notifications kept coming (Galaxy Note 4). Then started the "Person A has posted after a long time", or the even more general "Person A has uploaded a photo". Each time, my mental response to each notification was "So what?!"

In defence of "Person A has posted after a long time", that might be a good indicator that they've posted something important, or interesting enough to get them onto Facebook to share it. At a guess I'd probably rather see these than the usual spam from the really active people.

I haven't used the app in a long time.. did they get rid of chat heads? That drove me off completely.

I hated them and can confirm they're optional (at least on android)

My dystopian view of the future is one where bots will show up in your Messenger conversation and offer you deals "Hey I heard you guys were hungry, here's $2 off your next Chipotle order!" and people won't mind as long as their getting a deal.

In dystopian future they wont get $2 off but restaurant they go to increases price just for them.

I'm actually pretty surprised restaurants haven't tried a surge pricing model yet.

They have, it's called the lunch special, it just usually surges the opposite direction so that the restaurant becomes full during lunch times.

Yep. Or happy hour, or kids eat free on Tuesdays.

Sounds like something out of Daemon.

This already happens. The bots aren't inline as chat messages, but they're contextually aware ads like 'get an uber!'

In my dystopian view you actually talk, but only to one bot. 99% of your time. He or she is the most amazing, knowledgable, kind, funny and friendly person you know. Your best friend ever. All other communication (with bots of other people and companies, most likely) is going through this one person.

Your only choice is wether this friend is controlled by Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon.

You've met my ex?

Have you seen the movie Her? It's a nice exploration of this idea.

What a nice fantasy you have that we could have some time left without that. Too late though. It's ALREADY HERE.

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/16/322597862/how-retailers-use-sm...

Facebook are getting straight up annoying when it comes to their ads. The worst for me is their in feed video player. When an ad appears on a video, you can't like, comment, or share the video[1]. You're going to break my flow of using your own site so you can giddily inform advertisers that I paid more attention to their ad?

I think Facebook have rapidly transitioned to an ad first, rather than user first, experience.

[1]: Screenshot - http://imgur.com/a/hCxOT

Once I see those, I will finally remove the last app I have from this wretched company. Good riddance.

They were going to want to monetize Messenger eventually. I doubt it'll be too many ads since they have other ways to monetize Messenger too. Stickers aren't the same outside the east.

I don't use Facebook or Messenger. I am glad that I am not on it. I just have to figure out how to get out of WhatsApp. I also noticed that Facebook eco system is becoming more closed (no access to Facebook pages unless you sign up etc) on trying to get more people on it.

Its difficult enough to have two different apps for facebook. If you don't install messenger you can't see messages in the native facebook app -- what kind of regressive technology is this?

You can't even use messenger on the mobile version of the site. That really annoys me.

https://mbasic.facebook.com

That is awesome I did not know about that.

I'm very glad Facebook and Messenger aren't the same app. They do different things and I'd hate to only be able to use one at a time, or have the chat UI compromised to shoehorn it into Facebook.

Make the messenger work in both the apps, why force people?

More development time for a small portion of the population that actually cares?

I am pretty sure the number would be close to atleast 20% of all facebook users who do not have messenger app. That's 200M people.

Facebook will be screwed once everyone jumps ship to WhatsApp in protest.

They own WhatsApp.

Really?? Source please! /s

Or Instagram. Oh wait...

Why Facebook will be screwed? If I understand it correctly whatsapp is owned by Facebook and also can introduce similar features of messenger any time. So migration of users from one app to another should not be a problem for Facebook. Right?

Yes you're right, the joke went right over your head.

I see. I see the point of OP now. :)

OP was being sarcastic in case you missed it. Your reasoning being the point :). FB owning the two largest messaging apps helps quite a bit.

I actually think this is a pretty good strategy for Facebook. All of the people that care will move to WhatsApp and all of the people that don't will stay on messenger and earn the money. Seems like pretty much a win-win.

Excellent, this will make it much easier for me to persuade people to jump ship!

What's the realistic alternative? Don't say Signal, because I'm sure your friends have plenty of friends that don't have Signal.

Slack? Messenger seems to be stealing features from it the same way Instagram has been with Snapchat.

You wouldn't believe how many people I've switched to signal...

Hell I even just went ahead and installed signal on my families + extended families phones. Now we all use it, and no one is the wiser.

Sure, I chat with lots of people on Signal.

They all also have Messenger installed and use it. Because that's what everyone else uses.

>They all also have Messenger installed and use it. Because that's what everyone else uses.

And your contention is that they will continue to do so if it sprays ads in their face?

... yeah? Is there any evidence at all that suggests that the average consumer significantly changes their behavior at all to avoid advertising?

Yeah. Do you have anything showing that the average person or 95%+ of the population changes behavior just because some ads like the ones in Messenger get introduced?

If no one's going to install any new apps, then there is no realistic alternative.

SMS, because in most places local SMS is free.

If that bothers you, other options I use on the regular include Skype, Steam, Wickr, Mattermost, Slack, email and XMPP.

XMPP's federated nature makes it ideal for this kind of thing, but people liked the integrated nature of Facebook back in XMPP's hayday. As Facebook poisons each component of their own product, that integrated nature gets less attractive. I know one person specifically who only uses Facebook for messenger these days. This will give me an opportunity to help him leave. I don't mind what he picks to replace it as long as it doesn't require me to surrender personal data to use, and there's a rich selection of options to choose from.

I know that's not good enough for you, I can think of a few people like you just based on your tone.

I stopped using Facebook in ~2009, and when I did, about 95% of the people I knew swapped right back to skype without an issue, but 5% never initiated conversation with me again, because they were so completely consumed by Facebook they'd forgotten how to even remember people without it. I occasionally hit them up via other people just to keep in touch, but ultimately it's not my job to try to give them perspective.

I'd be fine with using Skype, the problem is no one I communicate with uses Skype. Same goes with Steam, Wickr, Mattermost, Slack.

I think everyone uses email, but I don't have most peoples' email addresses.

I'm not saying the technology in alternatives isn't there. I'm saying the network effect isn't there.

>I'd be fine with using Skype, the problem is no one I communicate with uses Skype.

Have you tried asking them?

I've had good experience with meeting people half way. I tell people "I'm not going to use facebook messenger. If you want to know why, I'll grab my laptop and give you the full hour long litany of every crime they've committed against their users since the company was founded, but the short version is I'm just not. I'll use any communication mechanism you chose that a) does not require facebook or google accounts and b) works even marginally on an android phone without google play services or a linux desktop.". You'd think that would be a short list, but it's not, and I've never failed to find something everyone is happy with. Once it's installed, everyone gets push notifications and no one actually cares who the provider is.

I wonder whether Ads are an appropriate way to monetize messaging apps. It's such a fundamentally different context from just mindlessly browsing the news feed on Facebook or Instagram. I'm sure FB has done their testing but, ads in an utility app that you want as little in your way as possible like Messenger or WhatsApp still strike me as something odd.

I got real busy working on a project and dumped Facebook about 4 months ago in a ruthless mission to delete all distractions. I haven't really missed it. I can call or text anyone whom I really want to speak to. And when I text comments or photos to a group SMS, I know Facebook isn't filtering it.

I've avoided Messenger and the Facebook app altogether. I've come to accept that my data is being sucked up, and it's a necessary evil, but I just don't want their apps on my phone. At least give me that in life.

Already uninstalled Facebook, now I'm uninstalling Messenger. Too bad because messenger's not that bad but not worth getting ads from. Even Facebook is too milktoast at this point to even waste time reading their ads for.

And then WhatsApp, the app can be killed, rebranded and re-skinned as FB messenger, and still retain the promise to customers and regulators about not advertising or monitoring communication

I'm surprised it took them this long. It makes sense unless they charge for API access instead

You've got a smartphone so you've got a browser. No need for Messenger.

They block messages on the mobile site.

To bypass it you have to go on someone's profile and tell your phone to request a desktop site. Then it works.

I'd try https://mbasic.facebook.com

It's mobile centric, browser based and gives you access to Messenger. Also, doesnt require the "hack" of requesting the desktop site (which may or may not work.) The trade-off is that lots of automatic Javascripty things don't work the same way.

It's worked well for me.

Try firefox if you have android. :)

We gotta blacklist pay wall sites from HN.

How dare they monetize a free service with ads?

Yes they should get the money from selling your BigData profile AND pushing ads in your face.

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