A celebration of hero mobile app developers

The mobile app developer is that person who picks up the lack of the platform developer. For example, if a smartphone OS lacks a feature, an app developer rises up, and develops an app to fill that vacuum.

The irony of the whole situation is that whenever the smartphone OS matures and incorporates that feature, the app developer is left to count his losses after years of development.

When a smartphone OS is dying, it is enthusiast developers who sweat day and night to keep the platform going long after the owners have stopped updating. Think of the developers who kept updating Symbian apps. Think of those who are keeping the BB10 and Windows Phone communities alive.

This post was inspired by Nemory Studios’ brave efforts to keep the BB10 community alive. They are the developers behind notable BB10 apps like Face10, Ober for Uber, Dater for Tinder, Messenger for Facebook, and Inst10, among others. Memory Studios say they will keep BB10 alive. I certainly wish them all the best at it.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts 5 billion Facebook users by 2030

In an occasion at Facebook’s (FB) new offices on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made bold predictions to reporters that he strongly anticipates his social network to by 2030 to have 5 billion users.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts 5 billion Facebook users by 2030

Putting in his words Zuckerberg said: “We want to finish connecting everyone, we’re going to do it in partnership with governments and different companies all over the world.”

According to USA Today, Zuckerberg’s goal is to have “5 billion of the world’s 7 billion humans connected to its social network.”You will agree with me that 7 billion is the global population at the present with the comparison taking on zero population growth over the next 14 years. If you measured this, The United Nations asserts a global population of 8.5 billion by 2030.

Yet, 5 billion out of 8.5 billion would still be a very plausible progress.

The prediction typically corresponds with Zuckerberg’s oft-reemphasized mission statement that his goal is to wire the world into a global connection. His practical approach to realizing this mission is including Internet-delivering drones and the controversial Internet.org.

From his perspective, Zuckerberg sees the latter project as a very helpful means to developing free services that prompt the encourages faster Internet adoption.

What 1 billion WhatsApp users mean to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and you

Three days ago, Facebook CEO took to his page to announce that WhatsApp has hit 1 billion users. Read below the announcement he made:

One billion people now use Congrats to Jan, Brian and everyone who helped reach this milestone!

WhatsApp’s community has more than doubled since joining Facebook. We’ve added the ability for you to call loved ones far away. We’ve dropped the subscription fee and made WhatsApp completely free. Next, we’re going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses.

There are only a few services that connect more than a billion people. This milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world.

I thought, “What would be the implication of this?” Surely, having this huge number of users under your care, something has to give, or take, or even both. Looking at it form three wide angles.

What it means to Mark Zuckerberg

To him, 1 billion users probably means more connected users. More people businesses can reach out to, better leverage for placing ads, and even better platform for earning revenue. From his words above:

…we’re going to work to connect more people around the world and make it easier to communicate with businesses.

This milestone is an important step towards connecting the entire world.

I already sense what this means. Ads and revenue.

What this means to Facebook:

A strong sibling that would be linked to it. Don’t be surprised both apps would be somehow linked together, maybe through Messenger, maybe I’m just guessing.

What this should mean to You:

Yeah right! We have more people now using WhatsApp. I can guess many of  us even coerced our parents to join. Have we ever looked at it this way? You can’t have a place where 1 billion people connect, and expect it to be all free without a form of income generation. Read again at the words of Oga Zuckerberg quoted above.

Working to connect more users and making it easier to communicate with businesses, can only mean one thing. Ads. How do businesses easily communicate with users? Even if it is customer service, ads can be infused still.

Your WhatsApp experience is about to get ugly