Facebook Messenger has a new feature, the ability to send payments to friends. This long-awaited app is no surprise. Though mobile payment is a crowded space (including Venmo), none of the other apps have the reach Facebook does. Facebook's intent is to keep users on their site longer and keep Facebook 'sticky'. They want to come up with different ways their users can 'play' with their site and this is one of them. Right now, Facebook is only accepting debit card information. Even so, gathering all this payment information has a lot of potential for future revenue streams and other internal apps.
The article points out that eMarketer, a Digital marketing firm, estimated that in 2014, US adults spent 21 minutes per day on Facebook on average. That is 6% of their time that they spend online. Behind Google, Facebook is the second-most trafficked site domestically and globally. Facebook is trying to prevent users from using outside apps for certain tasks.
I think a big thing is that this might help Facebook Messenger's image. People were upset that Facebook split the Messenger app off of the main app. Not only that, the image gets further tarnished when people realize that Messenger is always running in the background and gathering all sorts of information.
I guess we'll see what success Facebook has with the payment service.
Check out the article here: http://mashable.com/2015/03/17/facebook-payments-messenger/
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