Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is thinking ahead as he slowly comes to terms with the fact that folks do not always spend their time on Facebook. He also realizes that Facebook is not perfect for every situation; it's the reason why the social network has purchased several companies to fill that gap.
Facebook began life on the desktop; that's where the social network took off ahead of MySpace to become the top spot to communicate with friends and strangers alike on the Internet. However, as time has passed, Facebook is no longer mainly used via a desktop computer, it is being used via mobile devices.
According to Zuckerberg in an interview with the New York Times, smartphone users spend 20 percent of their time using Facebook. That's a lot, but Zuckerberg isn't settled with that amount, so he's thinking toward the future of what users could be doing next, and what could become the next big money-making business for the social network.
This is where the purchase of Instagram, Oculus VR and WhatsApp come into play. Internet users do not always find Facebook the best spot to do everything so they might use Instagram for photos instead of Facebook, or WhatsApp for messaging instead of Facebook Messenger.
It basically proves that while Facebook itself is a jack of all trades, it is a master of only a few. So, instead of baking every feature and service into the big blue virtual world, Zuckerberg sees it best to separate them since combining them into a single package might overwhelm smartphone users.
This appears to be a smart move, because the smartphone screen is small, and it would take much effort to navigate numerous features and sections in a single application. Having to launch different apps for different purposes seems like the order of the day, and Facebook appears to be far ahead on this one.
"On desktop where we grew up, the mode that made the most sense was to have a website, and to have different ways of sharing built as features within a website," said Zukerberg in an interview with the New York Times. "So when we ported to mobile, that’s where we started — this one big blue app that approximated the desktop presence.
"But I think on mobile, people want different things. Ease of access is so important. So is having the ability to control which things you get notifications for," Zuckerberg continues. "And the real estate is so small. In mobile there’s a big premium on creating single-purpose first-class experiences."
So far, Zuckerberg's decisions have placed Facebook in a position that prepare the social network for the future and what it has to offer. He might not always be seen as a visionary, but no doubt, his recent decisions are forward thinking.
