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Facebook IM: Killer App or Nobody Home?
When I read Sam Sethi’s scoop about an upcoming Facebook IM (Instant Messenger) client coming out soon, I immediately thought, "now what’s the valuation going to?" and "wow, this is a killer app" I have to assume that to use this IM, you must be inside the Facebook application.
Muhammad takes a look at the current messaging options within Facebook and wonders if we need an IM client. The current list includes: the facebook wall, facebook messaging and facebook status.
I wonder just how many Facebook users will use this app. Sure, a load will install and we will see marketing such as, "1 million installs in a week" but how many will actually use the app over time. I doubt many will. Why? Would Scoble want 5,000 buddies on his Facebook IM list? More importantly, do people want yet another IM client to manage? Why have eBuddy and Meebo become successful? It’s because they leverage many of the current networks instead of forcing me to build a new network. Sam says there is no download or installation needed but how do I get it on my profile? And how will my "friends" on Facebook react when they get my IMs? I question the ability for a Facebook IM to be successful.
I agree with you, Allen. I think people will use this, but it will be far from a killer app. I’m sure there will be a lot of hype and hoopla and facebook will either buy the app for a few million dollars or they’ll make one of their own and promote it. Either way, it’s not going to have much impact outside of facebook.
I think that can be said for all facebook apps (with the possible exception of lending club). No matter how big they are within the system, I don’t think any of them will have much impact to people who don’t currently use facebook. Likewise, I don’t think anyone is going to join facebook to just use the IM app or anyone using MySpace is going to switch because of this. The whole thing amounts to more techmeme headlines and mind share but will do very little for facebook’s bottom line.
On the positive side, facebook has apparently added 8 billion dollars to it’s valuation (but not it’s _value_) as a result of the platform and made a few people very rich. We’ll have ot see how the whole thing shakes out a few years down the road.