Facebook, one of the most popular social media platforms, is preparing to take a big leap. Following in the footsteps of Tencent’s WeChat, the single largest social network in China, Facebook is spreading its wings to be a one-stop solution for a person’s everyday needs.
WeChat allows people to message each other via one-on-one texts, audio or video calls. If needed, people can create groups of as many as 500 members to discuss current subjects. However, unlike Facebook, WeChat lets people cover their essential needs such as shopping, playing games, paying utility bills and even ordering food.
Facebook aspires to be one such platform as it believes that the new development will help it overcome its shortcomings. Recently, Facebook had faced criticism for privacy violations. Its ad-fueled and feed-based approach has resulted in losing many of its valuable customers.
Contrary to Facebook’s approach, in WeChat, the users will not see many advertisements in news feeds. They will see one or two ads a day in their feeds. WeChat is able to work so as its revenue comes from other services like shopping and payments. It survives on the commission they receive from these allied services. However, at a time when tech giants thrive on online ads, we need to wait and see how this ‘do-everything’ China model is going to revolutionise the internet business. The mode is not only applicable to Facebook, but other platforms such as Google and Twitter, too.
In fact, Facebook’s one-stop solution ambition dates back to its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. Later in 2014, the company hired David Marcus, a successful digital payment entrepreneur, to Facebook’s Messenger, pointing to Facebook’s aspiration to be a service provider.
The current expansion plan will give Facebook a new hold in the virtual space except China. It will let the app merge into users’ daily lives for entertainment, news and commerce. However, it will not be an easy task. In China, it was made possible for WeChat as the government backed the project in return of the favour of being able to retrieve deleted chats for police investigations. The government created an ambience for the app to grow by blocking many of its rivals from running in the country.
In this turbulent situation where various applications are being criticised for monopoly and privacy issues, we have to wait and watch what the new move has in store for Facebook.
