Are the new messaging apps from Facebook and Google a sign of fear?

It’s pretty fascinating that Facebook and Google debuted new messaging paradigms within six weeks of each other. Facebook Home’s one key feature is the prominent placement of its “chat heads” messaging alerts on the home screen. Google is launching a new messaging app particularly focused on group messaging. The debuts of these two initiatives fit within the same timeline: a sudden realization in 2012 that smartphone messaging had started evolving, followed by the feverish development of a new product that would finally launch in the spring of 2013. Facebook and Google are very much on the defense here. So what happened in 2012 that suddenly awakened these slumbering giants? Of course, there was the sheer volume explosion of WhatsApp, which



via Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/messaging-apps-facebook-google-sign-fear-200544868.html