Facebook Inc (FB) burst onto the scene by killing Myspace. But more recently, it’s been going after bigger targets, namely Alphabet Inc‘s (GOOG, GOOGL) YouTube, and to an extent, its search engine as well.
But, can Facebook actually disrupt…the phone number itself?
That’s one of the company’s goals for 2016. Specifically, it’s one of Facebook Messenger’s goals. David Marcus, VP of Messaging Products, shared this vision with the world last week, outlining it as the top “theme” for the division in the coming year.
No one ever said Facebook wasn’t ambitious; it’s part of what has made FB stock such a great investment since its IPO in 2012. But, just how realistic is this goal?
“Call Me on Facebook”
Here’s some of what Marcus had to say about this goal in a recent FB post announcing the initiative:
“SMS and texting came to the fore in the time of flip phones. Now, many of us can do so much more on our phones; we went from just making phone calls and sending basic text-only messages to having computers in our pockets. And just like the flip phone is disappearing, old communication styles are disappearing too.”
Okay, so it’s about the evolution of communication. He goes on to brag that, on Messenger,
“You can make video and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone’s phone number. You don’t need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger anymore, and it’s also a cross platform experience — so you can pick up where you left off whether you’re on a desktop computer, a tablet, or your phone.”
Does it weird you out? It’s strange to me, too. But it could happen. Consider the fact that FB Messenger already has more than 800 million users worldwide, and that number could almost double if every Facebook account holder was also a Facebook Messenger user (there are 1.5 billion users on Facebook itself).
Messenger has also made big steps before — last March, FB rolled out the ability for users to send and receive money through the service, and last August, management launched a digital personal assistant, dubbed Facebook M.
Plus, the fact that landlines have already gone the way of the dodo means FB’s futuristic dream isn’t entirely off-the-charts insane. In 2014, a full 44% of U.S. adults lived in households without a landline phone. Ten years earlier, that figure was 2%.
Ten years from now, will we be talking about phone numbers as some sort of antiquated joke? Perhaps. If we are, it’s very likely that it will have been made possible by FB and Facebook Messenger.
As of this writing, John Divine did not hold a position in any of the stocks mentioned. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
