One simple chart shows why Facebook just bought an anonymous chat app for teens (FB)

pulse

October 17, 2017 5:51 PM

Facebook has either created, bought, or tried to buy most of the top apps in the App Store.

Facebook announced on Monday that it bought tbh, a teen-focused anonymous polling app.

The app is still relatively small, with 2.5 million active users according to TechCrunch. But Facebook's acquisition of it makes perfect sense when you look at this handy chart first created by tweeted it

Facebook's strategy is to dominate the apps on your smartphone — by building, cloning and acquiring. And as the chart shows, Facebook has a hand, or has tried to have a hand, in almost all the most popular free apps in Apple's App store. Once tbh started climbing the chart, it was only a matter of time until Facebook came calling.

Not shown on the chart is the No.1 app, which on Monday night was Google-owned YouTube. Since then however, tbh has claimed the top spot.

Here's a rundown of the other most popular apps on the chart, and how Facebook gained its dominance:

2. Messenger: Facebook built Messenger on top of Beluga, a popular group messaging app that it acquired in 2011

3. Instagram: Instagram was a standalone app that Facebook bought in 2012 for $1 billion

4. Snapchat: Facebook tried to buy Snapchat, but founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy famously rebuffed the $3 billion acquisition offer. Since then, Facebook has introduced several features nearly identical to Snapchat's

5. Facebook: The Facebook app is Facebook's flagship app. It launched in 2010.

6. tbh: Facebook didn't disclose the terms of its deal with tbh or when it acquired the company, but the 3-month-old app

pulse