Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg opens up about Creative Labs and the company's recent acquisitions in an interview with The New York Times. UPI/Terry Schmitt |
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MENLO PARK, Calif., April 16 (UPI) -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees new initiative Creative Labs as a way to create new apps, detaching existing functionalities than can become stand-alone apps.
Zuckerberg in an interview with The New York Times' Farhad Manjoo discussed Facebook's future and how the company plans to play with more products outside the core social networking site. While Facebook's innovation engine may have slowed down, Zucker berg feels Creative Labs will help the web giant create and distribute new services via multiple apps.
"So what we’re doing with Creative Labs is basically unbundling the big blue app," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg conceded that enhancements like Home and Graph Search haven't done as well as expected, but said that with Graph Search the company knew it would take five years before the feature was good and unique. But on the flip side, according to Zuckerberg, apps like Messenger and Paper have done well and are in line with the company's multi-app strategy.
The social media executive said that he sees Facebook as a one-stop shop or the "big blue app" for users and that on mobile the company had decided to splinter into smaller, specialized apps that may not have Facebook branding or even need a Facebook account.
“We went out of our way to just call it Paper, not Facebook Paper,” Zuckerberg pointed out about the new apps. “One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity.”
Last week the company began notifying users that they will soon need the stand-alone Messenger app to send messages to friends.
Speaking about Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp, Zuckerberg said that the acquisition made sense if one were to observe the way people used WhatsApp and Messenger.
He said if one were to look at the nuances of how people use both apps, people will realize that Messenger is used for chatting and WhatsApp is used as an SMS replacement.
Zuckerberg said that he was interested to see how Tesla continues to deliver a product that is marketed "as an upscale thing," given that other companies have tried to sell electric cars in the past failed.
[The New York Times]
