Facebook recently started on their plan to merge all its platforms and Instagram’s independency has taken a hit. The company’s engineers are currently working on rebuilding the Instagram chat feature using technology from Facebook Messenger. This enables users of Instagram to communicate to users of Messenger from the app itself.
To make this happen, the staff will report to the Messenger team directly. The end result might not change how the direct messaging interface looks but it will change what lies beneath.
One of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decisions last year was to enable users of Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp to chat with each other across the platforms. Zuckerberg’s ‘interoperability’ is however a massive task.
The company also faced flak for the decision as many critics believe the other two apps are popular because of their non-integration with Facebook, who have faced issues in the past with Data Privacy and sharing.
Zuckerberg has increased Facebook’s hold over Instagram and WhatsApp over the years since their acquisition. Unnamed sources have indicated that his idea is for the apps to return the favour to Facebook after using its resources to grow.
The company also recently decided to change the branding names of the two apps to ‘Instagram from Facebook’ and ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’. This also goes on to the app employees getting @facebook Email IDs instead of @whatsapp and @instagram ones.
