Brief: You could see more ads on Facebook Messenger soon

Photo credit: Viktor Hanacek

• Facebook has revealed a surprise: it plans to focus on advertising as Facebook Messenger’s primary revenue model.
• Many expected Messenger to spin money around payments and ecommerce, following in the footsteps of Line and WeChat. After all, the person helming Messenger is former PayPal president David Marcus.
• But while Messenger has indeed launched payments and commerce features, they’re not taking a cut of transactions. “The one thing we traditionally do, and is a decent business for us, is advertising. So we’ll continue focusing on that,” says David.
• Messenger is one of the world’s most dominant chat apps, with over a billion active users.

Source: Recode

Brief is a new format that brings you essential and bite-sized news and analysis. Like or dislike? Drop your feedback in the comments section below.