Facebook Messenger Becomes a Platform

Following F8, Facebook’s semi-annual developer conference in 2014, I suggested that Facebook was evolving from a social network into a bona fide social ecosystem. In 2015, we can see that Facebook is thinking beyond the unbundling of its popular features but also turning them into independent and connected platforms. Following this year’s F8, Facebook introduced new features for payments within Messenger as well as opening direct lines of communication between users and businesses. Additionally, Facebook opened Messenger to developers to help augment and enhance the user experience and capabilities.

The Sharing Economy Begets the Shut-In Economy

Whatever you call it, the sharing economy, the collaborative economy, the rental economy, in the end, new services such as Uber, Instacart, Fluc, TaskRabbit, are making it too easy for consumers to get what they want when they want it where they want it. I call this the “on-demand” economy and it has some experts questioning whether or not these immediate gratification apps are contributing to a “shut in” economy.

Tech CEOs Fight Against Indiana’s Religious Freedom Act

WTF Indiana!? Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff led the charge of tech CEOs and eventually other prominent influencers to challenge Indiana on its controversial passing of the Religious Freedom Act. Oh and that pizzeria we talk about in this episode? Seems like the number of $upporters of this bill remind us that no matter what year it is and how far we’ve come, we still have a long way to go until we really are a human race.

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