Adweek: Facebook Begins Rolling Out Ads Within Messenger

The future of digital media is now. Mobile messaging, which is growing at a rapid rate and has significant engagement from users will soon have annoying ads. This of course is a small price to pay given that the ability to send messages to others is virtually free. That said, if what app includes ads, does it risk losing all of its market share to another app that doesn't show ads? Consumers certainly have many to choose from. I myself have 4 to 5 different messaging apps on my phone that I use interchangeably. This includes Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, GroupMe, WhatsApp, Slack.

Facebook has been pushing Messenger and all its new features heavily, basically forcing me to download the app. They will have to be careful and make sure to preserve the user experience.

The worrisome thing, like all internet targeting, is how deeply Facebook will utilize the information. Maintaining confidentially will be important because what I text to others is very private. I hope standards could be set in the future with regard to safeguarding our information, because I believe it will be increasingly more important.



http://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-begins-rolling-out-ads-within-messenger/

Facebook moving to the corporate networking segment

Facebook has recently launched “Work Chat”, its chat version of Facebook Messenger,  designed for interacting with colleagues. This version of Messenger allows coworkers to message each other individually, participate in group chats, share photos and videos, make voice calls, and even use stickers.

According to the company, Facebook at Work has 300 companies using its platform, ranging from smaller startups to large, established companies like banks. The platform allows employers to set up new accounts for their staff. The service has collaboration features such as document sharing, discussions, announcements, groups, project collaborations, events, and more.

Its main competitors are Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce Chatter and Slack, and the question is whether a whole new space for work collaboration and networking is coming.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/20/facebook-at-work-gets-its-own-version-of-messenger-with-debut-of-work-chat/

Will Email marketing die?

I read the following news article on Techcruch recently: http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/01/turing-email-wants-to-make-sending-emails-as-fun-as-using-slack/. This article talks about how Turing Email has set out to change the way we check our email. There are other companies like Slack that have already started changing the way we communicate with co-workers at work (including mailing). I used Slack when I was interning with a VC firm in the bay area this summer and found it way better than any other software that I have ever used for office communication (I have worked at 4 companies now). Even at home, the use of e-mail has been declining as we communicate more on social media and use various other sources for information and content. With these trends, I sometimes wonder how relevant E-mail marketing would be after a few years.

Having said that, seems like email is still very relevant. I still don't know many people who don't have an email id whereas I know quite a few people who are not on FB, or don't use Twitter or Snapchat. I found an interesting blog (with some interesting statistics) that talks about the relevance of email marketing even in today's environment: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2014/09/email-marketing-statistics/. I guess the thing is that e-mail marketing is not going away anytime soon. Rather the blogpost suggests that e-mail marketing is a very effective means of digital marketing. Guess the point then really is that e-mail may still be very relevant today but if it doesn't evolve with the times, then it could become redundant. As ways to interact with e-mail evolve, so should ways to market using e-mail!