Facebook is reportedly seeing a decrease in its daily users, especially teens, who have started to prefer mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp, SnapChat and WeChat, over the social networking giant.
According to the Guardian, the mass exodus from the social networking giant is attributed to the coming of messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and KakaoTalk, which host free instant messages through a phone’s data connection.
Unlike Facebook, these apps promote dynamic real-time chatting with different groups of real-life friends, because one gets to connect with people who already exist in their phone book.
The report said that Facebook admitted that while teens are still on the site, activity levels have been dropping.
WhatsApp, established in 2009, is the biggest messaging app in the world by users, with more than 350 million monthly active users globally, putting Twitter’s 218 million users behind.
The report said that since apps like these shun advertising, provide a more private sharing space like in SnapChat, and some like Kakao Talk offer services other than simple messaging or photo sharing, which includes gaming and music sharing.
However, the report went on to say that many of the popular Asian chat apps such as Kakao and LINE are struggling to appeal to US users, due to the stylised nature of their interfaces – vivid colors, manga-style characters and lettering.
Read the report here