According to a report in the New York Times, Facebook is in the early stages of merging the backend of its three popular messaging apps. WhatsApp and Instagram — both acquired by Facebook after independent success — and the separated Messenger app will share the same infrastructure by the end of 2019 or early next year.

To be clear, all three will continue to function as standalone apps, but they will all benefit from the end-to-end encryption already implemented in WhatsApp. In what could prove a significant advantage over other messaging ecosystems, Facebook is also "considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks."

Cross-platform messaging would be a real boon for all three services, and could also help Facebook better monetize the apps. WhatsApp has in excess of 1.5 billion monthly active users but it hasn't been able to generate a great deal of revenue up to now.

Source: New York Times

Thanks: Kieron Quinn