ParisLemon

Good retort by Ben Brooks on my post yesterday about Facebook Messenger. 

I definitely agree that the combination of SMS and iMessage into one app is killer. That idea led to this initial post a while back.

But I also recognize that Messenger (or something like it) has greater potential because it’s cross-platform, whereas iMessage is iOS-only. As much as it pains me to say it, there’s always going to be a huge market outside of the iPhone. That’s just the way it is.

iMessage may very well slowly kill SMS on the iPhone, but to truly kill it, we need a cross-platform solution. Of all the ones I’ve seen, Messenger is the most compelling yet because of its seamless integration of three key areas: iOS/Android/Web.

Plus it comes with a massive installed user base. This is often overlooked in “SMS killers” and “email killers”. To kill massive things, it’s much easier to start out massive. That’s not to say a startup (a true startup, not Facebook) can’t disrupt an industry, but right now in a space like group messaging, there’s too much fragmentation. This keeps SMS alive.

That’s also not to say that Facebook Messenger for sure wins here. Certainly, there are plenty of people who don’t use Facebook and don’t want to use Facebook for anything. But with 750 million connected users, it does have the best shot right now.

All I know is that I want SMS dead. For too long it has been a racket keeping the carriers in control. Everyone is now attacking it. I love it.