The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg admits he didn’t handle Facebook Messenger transition smoothly

Author

By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

November 8, 2014 | 2 min read

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that forcing people to download Facebook Messenger as a separate app was not the smoothest way to handle the transition.

The most popular question asked on a thread ahead of Facebook’s first ever public Q&A yesterday 7 November, was “Why did you force us to install Facebook Messenger?”

He acknowledged that it was a “big ask” and caused “a lot of friction.”

However, Zuckerberg explained that the Facebook app is not focused on messaging – something he said people “do more than social networking” – and couldn’t deliver a good user experience.

“Even though it was a short term painful think to ask people to install a Facebook Messenger app, we knew we could never deliver a good experience inside a tab in the Facebook app,” he said.

"On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing well, we think."

The stand-alone app was ‘forced’ on people rather than letting them install in their own time because Facebook “builds for the community,” he said.

“Having all of your friends synchronised on a service is a valuable thing to do.”

However, Zuckerberg admitted that “maybe we didn’t handle that as smoothly as we could, in terms of the transition".

“We realise we have a lot to earn in trust and proving that this standalone messenger service is going to be good,” he said.

He also answered questions on why he wears the same t-shirt everyday: "I feel like I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life."

And about the film, The Social Network: ""I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that movie in a while. I kind of blocked that one out."

Facebook

More from Facebook

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +