Facebook has reportedly hired former Snapdeal chief product officer, Anand Chandrasekran, to work on its Messenger platform. With the new global leadership role at Facebook, Chandrasekaran will focus on creating strategies and key partnerships for Facebook Messenger, which hit the 1 billion active users mark in July this year.
Chandrasekaran was appointed as the chief product officer at Snapdeal back in June 2015, though decided to quit the company in May this year. Before that, he was the product chief at Bharti Airtel for a year. Besides, he also joined Yahoo in 2011, where he served as the director of search and worked on projects for mobile products, mobile search, and Yahoo Answers.
Before joining Yahoo, Chandrasekaran also served as a venture advisor at Storm Ventures and director of product management at Openwave.
Facebook shifts focus to bot ecosystem
Chandrasekaran’s appointment comes at a pivotal time as Facebook Messenger just crossed 1 billion active users in July. Messenger is now a part of the 1 billion club, which includes the likes of WhatsApp, YouTube, Gmail and Google Maps.
During its F8 conference in April, Facebook announced APIs that support bot development on the platform to all developers, as the company now shifts its focus on bot ecosystem. The social networking giant had launched the API to allow a few developers create bots in Messenger for activities such as traveling, dining, shopping etc.
Earlier this month, Facebook also announced that businesses can accept payments within Messenger itself, without having to send users to an external website. However, the feature is currently available only in the United States, though is expected to see a wider global rollout by year end.
While last year, Facebook moved Messenger out of its core social networking app to make it an exclusive platform in itself. The move was a part of the company’s effort to develop a family of social networking apps that go beyond the core functionality offered by its main social networking app. The company also bought WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in February 2014. Even Facebook-owned Instagram still remains independent four years since its acquisition, which pretty much gives a clear indication of what Facebook is aiming at – innovating new ways of ‘Communication’.
