Given Privacy Issues, Facebook Developing Anonymous Message App | MediaPost | Featured | Knowledge Partners | All MKC Content | ANA

Given Privacy Issues, Facebook Developing Anonymous Message App

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by Gavin O'Malley

Facebook is developing an anonymous messaging app, but, contrary to reports, it will not simply clone secretive services like Whisper and Secret.

That’s according to the app’s lead developer, Josh Miller, who joined Facebook in January when it acquired his product startup Branch for $15 million.

“I hope people know the [Branch] crew wouldn't build a clone of anything,” Miller tweeted on Tuesday night. “Can’t wait to show you what we’ve built.”

Word of the forthcoming app -- first reported by The New York Times -- follows criticism from the LGBT community over Facebook’s “real-name” policy. So serious was the issue, that Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook, publicly apologized to LGBT users and their advocates.

Yet, in his letter of apology, Cox said connecting users’ identity to their digital activity remained critical to the health of Facebook’s community.

“It's the primary mechanism we have to protect millions of people every day, all around the world, from real harm,” Cox explained. “The stories of mass impersonation, trolling, domestic abuse and higher rates of bullying and intolerance are oftentimes the result of people hiding behind fake names.”

On Tuesday, Miller appeared to support Cox’s position. “Identity isn't a product goal,” Miller tweeted. The “focus should be on what human desire you want to enable, not anonymity as the focal point.”

“Anonymous [with] friends + anonymous [with] schools breeds gossip,” Miller tweeted, adding: “It’s very hard to build retentive communities without ‘regulars’ … You need some sort of recurring identity.”

Facebook’s ad partners also put a premium on their ability to connect users’ identities with their digital activity. As such, a turn toward anonymous social networking could threaten Facebook’s bottom line. Yet, shifting consumer behavior -- driven in part by privacy concerns -- is forcing Facebook to explore the world anonymous networking.

In June, Facebook launched a Snapchat-like app, dubbed Slingshot, which lets users share pictures and video along with text to friends. Encouraging more interactions -- and trying to distinguish the service from Snapchat -- recipients can’t view incoming messages until they respond with a message of their own. (Like Snapchat, the messages effectively disappear after they’ve been viewed.)

In August, Facebook’s Instagram unit debuted a Snapchat-like service named Bolt in select overseas markets, including New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa.

While Instagram is proceeding gingerly with Bolt’s broader release, a domestic launch seems inevitable. “We decided to start small with Bolt in just a handful of countries ... to make sure we can scale while maintaining a great experience,” an Instagram spokesman told Social Media & Marketing Daily, this summer. “We expect to roll it out more widely soon.”

The resources required to build out Slingshot and Bolt are relatively nothing compared to the $3 billion that Facebook was prepared to pay for Snapchat, last year -- an offer that Snapchat rebuffed.

According to Forrester, Snapchat remains the most popular disappearing messaging service, while other start-ups -- including Whisper, Secret, PostSecret, sixbillionsecrets -- continue to take marketshare. Improving their prospects, Secret recently took another $25 million in funding, while Whisper raised a sum approaching $30 million in March.

Source

"Given Privacy Issues, Facebook Developing Anonymous Message App." MediaPost, 10/8/14.

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