Facebook Messenger Topples YouTube In Popularity
When the Facebook Messenger app was first released, it was met with more than a mixture of skepticism. However, according to the latest listings, Facebook Messenger has topped YouTube to become the second most popular app on the planet.
ComScore is the list that rated the Facebook Messenger app as higher than YouTube. ComScore is a major digital media analytics firm, and it recently listed the 15 most popular apps on the internet. Google and Facebook have the most apps on the list, to no one’s surprise. However, Facebook Messenger upping Google’s YouTube is a big step.
That rise in status now gives Facebook the number 1 and 2 spots on the list as the basic Facebook app is still the most popular.
Facebook has invested a ton of money, promotion, and innovation with its Facebook app, and it now appears that all of that sweat and effort has paid off. Even though a lot of people scrunched up their nose in disgust when Facebook obligated users to install the Facebook Messenger app in order to use the messaging service, it seems that most of those users’ concerns have flown the coop. Facebook Messenger enables users of Facebook to exchange private messages with the friends they have on Facebook. Whether or not people like to admit it, the Facebook Messenger app is extremely useful when one considers that they probably don’t have email addresses or other contact information for all of the friends, acquaintances, and family members they have on Facebook. The Messenger app provides a simple way of contacting those individuals privately for a multitude of reasons.
So, should Google be quaking in their boots? Not necessarily. Even though YouTube has fallen to third place in the most popular apps list behind Facebook Messenger, Google still dominates the top 10 most popular apps. Google’s YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, Google Play, and Google Maps apps are all still on the list — they’re all just behind Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
According to the ComScore list, Facebook is on 73.3 percent of smartphones, Facebook Messenger is on 59.5 percent, YouTube is on 59.3 percent, Google Search is on 52.0 percent, Google Play is on 51.8 percent, and Google Maps is on 50.6 percent of them. Also rounding out the top 10 are Pandora Radio, Instagram, Yahoo Stocks, Amazon Mobile, Twitter, and Snapchat.
In other interesting smartphone information, according to ComScore, 191.4 million people owned smartphones in July of 2015, with Apple being the weapon of choice for 44.2 percent of Americans. Samsung devices are in the hands of 27.3 percent of them, and LG has an 8.7 percent share of the American marketplace.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
