Messenger Integration (Part 1)
Email is the mother of all credentials — it’s the unique identifier for most accounts. After email, the ‘second tier’ is composed of Social Login services powered by Facebook, Twitter, Google and the like. Onboarding takes about a second, it saves memorizing another username & password combo, and it comes with a variety of profile information. The ‘third tier’ is composed of smaller apps that often rely on the former for sign-ups.
Social Login can supplant Email Login as the mother of all credentials.
Email is being replaced by the surge of social messaging apps. In fact, as of right now, the four largest social networks’ user bases combine for ~3 billion users. The engine behind the uniqueness is messaging apps; they’ve grown to combine for ~4 billion users.
Communication is the core of social networks, and messaging services champion that with a phone number (the grandmother of all credentials) and a name. Thanks to Eastern influence, messenger platforms are starting to become one-stop shops for services by allowing third-parties to join… the party. My favourite Benedict Evans blogpost explains it here.
The difference between Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other Social Login providers is that Facebook owns a widely adopted messenger service, and that is why none of the other social networks will matter anymore. So what about the apps that played their cards right and focused on chat?
Other than having a head start, the difference between Facebook Messenger and apps like Line & Telegram is that Facebook Messenger grew from a social network ecosystem and it brings assets like profile information and an established Social Login function. This is why no other messaging services are going to matter either.
Soon, third-party apps will want to access your chats to create a more seamless experience — Facebook is best positioned to provide that access.
Suppose you downloaded a calendar app with built-in chat that helps you make plans with your friends, but not everyone has it. Kind of useless talking to yourself, and kind of stressful and expensive for the calendar app to adopt users. Now consider a Social Login with chat enabled where a user can chat with friends that don’t have the calendar app. The calendar user is no longer in isolation, and the user can debate meeting times in-app.
Imagine the same use case for logging into any ‘social’ third-tier apps where it’d be nice to include your friends through your preferred chat platform: discuss movie preferences on Cineplex, Pizza toppings on Papa Johns, post-show commentary on Netflix.
But then the question becomes, why don’t Cineplex, Papa Johns and Netflix just make chatbots? Continued here.
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