Facebook’s messaging ambitions amount to much more than chat

Facebook, already the leader in enabling you to share photos, videos and links, now wants to be a force in messaging, commerce, payments and just about everything else you do online.

The company’s ambitions harken to how WeChat has become the centerpiece of digital life in China, where people use it to order movie tickets, subway passes, food delivery and rides.

If Facebook succeeds in turning its own messaging services into a platform for everything, it could ultimately threaten established services such as Snapchat, Yelp, Venmo, eBay and even Apple and Amazon.

“It’s clear that Facebook does have very broad ambitions here,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at Technalysis Research.