When Facebook launched, it took a beachhead strategy by focusing on elite universities. As we all know, that worked pretty well as they surpass 1 billion users. Now that they’ve nearly saturated the market, they’ve expanded their offering through several independent apps, designed for specific use cases (Camera, Messenger, Pages Manager, and most recently, Poke), they’ve moved to a “tide pool” strategy. This allows them to:
- Command More Shelf Space - the App Store is very similar to brick-and-mortar stores. Each have limited amount of visible shelf space. Since a large percentage of mobile app discovery is from window shoppers, apps that are featured or listed in the top charts receive a bulk of the downloads. Additionally, more shelf space on the user’s device may also lead to greater awareness and usage.
- Experiment with Less Risk - any new feature added to the Facebook app has a risk of negatively impacting the user experience or revenue of its 600MM+ users (although A/B testing can help minimize this, significant new functionality isn’t always realistic). Separate apps minimize the risk and allow for more unique design or departures from the standard Facebook experience. I wouldn’t doubt if they’re testing with off-brand, experimental apps as well.
- Move Faster - Facebook is known for its extremely autonomous, engineering-driven culture. Its teams remain fairly independent and agile, enabling them to build and release product quickly. Splitting off independent apps reduces the amount cross-team coordination and dependencies.
- Capture Mind Positioning - the ultimate goal of any product is to be the first service users think of when triggered with a desire (see Positioning). I want to take a photo: Instagram. I want to make a dinner reservation: OpenTable. I want to send a message to a friend: WhatsApp. When your app does everything, it dilutes its positioning for specific use cases. This is exactly what Evernote has done with eight separate apps and counting.
I expect to see Facebook create more “tide pools” as they build and acquire (a la Instagram) more independent apps. http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/21/towards-fewer-apps-the-rise-of-the-uber-app/
