16Bn sounds like a lot – but it’s a fact that disruption is already happening in social media, and snapchat, line, kik and obviously whatsapp are some of the responsible entities. So 16Bn for 10 minutes each day of time spent by users on a mobile phone, sounds like a bargain to me!
So what is Facebook getting?
On top of a profitable business, they’re buying market leadership on developing markets, as techradar points out (and well!), and you’re snatching yet another of the key uses of smartphones to add to facebook’s mobile empire – share of time or even share of engagement.
Soon, you’ll be able to do everything using a facebook service – sounds familiar right, almost Google’esque! (And let’s not forget the data…).
The other striking idea is the evolution of real-time interaction over content, with the clear example of how Line’s gaming platform seems to hint, and this could be contagious to other activities on a mobile phone – content consumption, and even a collaborative enterprise solution.
With the real time generations coming, we can imagine they won’t share the cool stuff they read on a website or social media network on their twitter, facebook or linkedin accounts – they’ll probably chat about it directly on those environments/platforms.
You can envision something like a “chat with whatsapp” widget to include on your blog – which in its turn also opens up the opportunity of Facebook guaranteeing presence on all relevant content sources and placeholders of the web – in real time!
And just to it finish-off – if you trust Facebook with all that different data about what you like doing, who you speak to and where you spend money (the missing link in my opinion) – they can become that trusted entity that holds your personal data and enables you as a real-time digital consumer, virtually and in the physical world!
Congratulations Facebook, you’ve closed another prize door to the whole TELCO industry-salvation-jeopardy show, and ensured at least 10 more years of profit distribution to your share holders!
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