Make ITM Work

Did you see Facebook’s new standalone mobile app for its Messenger feature pop up in your app store this week?

Regardless of whether or not you plan on using that feature instead of the robust (and burdensome) Facebook app, you should know that this marks a very important shift in the way Facebook is thinking about mobile.

The future of web service is Mobile.

First of all – Mobile is important. Not only is this where the growth is (see: Foursquare and Instagram), many sites (like Twitter) have figured out how to monetize their apps profitably. Mobile is not just about games and news though. It’s about user-experience, social sharing, and creating light and dedicated features to break up the weight and feature-heavy web applications currently in existence. And Facebook Messenger is the response to this “application-lite” trend.

As Fred Wilson – blogger, VC, and Principal of Union Square Ventures – writes on his blog, A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC -

Mobile does not reward feature richness. It rewards small, application specific, feature light services. I have said this before but I will say it again. The phone is the equivalent of the web application and the mobile apps you have on your home screen(s) are the features.

The mobile future means that the rules of advertising, commerce, and app development are changing. How will your company respond to this movement?

Check out some Philly-based companies that are changing the landscape of Mobile:

• Philly.com: A bubbling of tech firms in Philadelphia’s Old City, Jane M. Von Bergen