WhatsApp vs Facebook
Why do we trust Whatsapp when we hate Facebook?
The evolution of a beloved brand owned by a corporate villain
I am part of the Facebook Generation. In my midteens, I packed my cringe-inducing photos and left Bebo for the bright lights and shiny newness of Facebook. This also means that by my mid-twenties the company and social media that I once thought was the best facet of the internet, is now evil in my eyes. Where did it all go wrong? When did we begin to see the website we used to share what we were eating as a soul-destroying corporation and why is it that we adore some products in their portfolio when we hate others?
As a smartphone user in Europe, Whatsapp is one of the most used apps on my phone. It allows me to talk to friends and family in different timezones quickly and easily. On a recent trip to Seattle, I remarked that I was in bed at the end of my Tuesday chatting to a friend starting her Wednesday in a time zone nine hours ahead of me. What was mindblowing about that situation was that it didn’t feel like I was so far away. That was because of Whatsapp.
But Whatsapp has a dark side that we like to forget about, it is owned by Facebook. Why do we love and, most importantly, trust Whatsapp with our data and messages when we so often talk about the privacy issues surrounding Facebook? On a recent episode of the Product Breakfast Club, a podcast I can’t recommend highly enough, the guys mentioned Facebook’s plan to start to integrate Messenger and Whatsapp to allow a user to message someone on either app regardless of whether they use Messenger or Whatsapp. My immediate response to this was please don’t let this happen, don’t let Facebook ruin Whatsapp.
This reaction was so quick that it surprised me but it got me thinking. What is it that makes me use Whatsapp when I can’t even stand to open Messenger, Facebook’s other messaging service. Firstly I thought perhaps it’s the interface. While Facebook now owns Whatsapp the interface hasn’t changed and the branding is still distinctly Whatsapp. So what if Facebook were to change that? Would a rose by any other branding still smell as sweet or would something be rotten in the state of Whatsapp? (Two Shakespeare quotes in one sentence, my secondary school English teacher should be proud or perhaps deeply ashamed of me.) Quotes aside I decided to test this, to rebrand Whatsapp with a Facebook palette.
Before starting this experiment I hadn’t noticed how much green Whatsapp’s brand employs across their products. From the app icon to the message background, you are reminded that this is Whatsapp and not iMessage or Messenger, above, from its use of green. Replacing the greens of Whatsapp with the blues of Facebook changed the look of the app completely. What struck me first was that the message screen seemed cleaner and perhaps more modern but that the home screen with your list of chats felt closer to Facebook than I would feel comfortable using.
With the brand changes applied I began to begin to see the app in a slightly different light. Not enough to stop me using the app though, so I began wondering what else they could do to change my opinion. This lead me to Messenger, an app no longer on my phone due to my frustration when using it. So I began wondering what was it that made me stop using this app so much that I uninstalled it.
There was a time where I would conduct the bulk of my online conversations via Facebook Messenger. This is back before Messenger was its own standalone app. When Facebook decided we must download a separate app in order to use their Messenger service, I had no problem with this as it felt like they were trying to make it its own product, away from Facebook, more of a messaging app rather than messaging within Facebook. Then they began asking for more and more permissions, invite your non-Facebook friends to Messenger etc. This is where it started going downhill for me. The more data they wanted the more it felt like we were no longer safe on this app.
I understand the need to innovate, like sharks, product companies need to keep moving forward for fear of dying. In this case, the more Facebook moved Messenger forward, the more I, as a user, wanted out. Every time a new feature was added the experience felt more and more clunky, for lack of a better word. The interface became bloated with features that we didn’t want or use. We were encouraged to send calendar invites and install more and more apps and features to integrate Messenger into every aspect of our lives. Facebook had lost sight of what users wanted to do on Messenger, we wanted to send messages.
So maybe when asking why we still love Whatsapp, we should be asking what have they done differently with Whatsapp as opposed to Messenger? The main difference, in my opinion anyway, is that they’ve left Whatsapp to its primary function, messaging. Yes, they’ve added voice calls and video calls and you can send gifs or your live location but they’ve left Whatsapp as a communication app, the reason we all downloaded it, and initially paid for it, in the first place.
While I have been talking about how Facebook has left Whatsapp alone, it was pointed out to me that they have added a “status” feature. Similar to Instagram stories, this feature allows a user to add a custom full-screen message which disappears after 24 hours. This feature was also implemented in a similar way in Messenger and Facebook and, according to a Google search, is quite popular. I had to Google this because not one of my contacts has ever used this feature so I’m not too sure how popular these status updates really are. I even tested this feature and within 6 hours only had 2 views of my first status, so perhaps they’re not that popular with my group of friends and acquaintances.
Rumours spring up quite often about Facebook adding ads to Whatsapp, most recently a tweet sent by someone at their marketing summit detailed ads being brought into statuses. This, of course, spurred hives of clickbait headlines with camouflaged sources. While I wouldn’t take reports based off a tweet too seriously, the possibility of ads making their way into Whatsapp is worrying. Whether or not there is truth in the rumours, they alone are damaging to Whatsapp as they remind us who their parent company is and, while it may be an ad or two for now, as we’ve seen with Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, they may not stop there.
