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Integrating WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger

Technology Today

With all of these new technological advancements in today's society, I am sure that most of us, if not all, have Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and many more applications downloaded on our cell phones. Contacting friends or family that live in a different country is easy to do with WhatsApp, an app that lets you connect with them for free. Instagram has a direct messaging component that allows you to message anyone who has an account. Facebook Messenger is an app that allows you to message your Facebook friends and have conversations with them. All of these apps are ways to communicate with people all around the world.

Integrating the Apps

Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, had an idea to integrate these apps. While the services will continue to be separate applications from one another, their underlying technical infrastructure will be unified. The purpose of this integration is to allow more than 2.6 billion users to communicate across all these platforms. Zuckerberg had this idea because this gives him the potential to redefine how people use these apps to connect with one another while strengthening Facebook's grip on users.

Good or Bad Idea?

I think that integrating these apps is a good idea solely because Zuckerberg has ordered that all the apps incorporate end-to-end encryption in order to protect messages from being read by anyone other than the participants in the conversation. However, one positive does not outweigh all the negatives. Zuckerberg is doing this because Facebook has been going through a rough patch and he has lost both Instagram and WhatsApp's founders because Zuckerberg was beginning to weigh in too much. This integration plan also raises some concern for privacy because of the way users' information may be shared between services. 

Overall, I believe that WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger should stay as separate applications and continue the way that it has been thus far.