The year just started promises to be full of innovations, especially regarding Social Networks and instant messaging.

It’s probably still too early to predict what twists 2019 will bring in terms of social network innovations, but we might be about to witness a historic shift in our communications.

Big changes are rumored for the messaging giant WhatsApp and the leading social networks, Facebook and Instagram. In recent weeks, a detailed report has been shared outlining Mark Zuckerberg’s plans for the near future. The infrastructures of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger might be set to merge in a massive operation expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

If this is confirmed, a long and complex process will begin to unify the three services, although they will remain independent apps. This means that WhatsApp users could communicate with those who only have an Instagram account, all through a single messaging platform.

According to leaked information, Zuckerberg himself is said to have given clear instructions regarding end-to-end encryption, which is currently only available on WhatsApp. However, it is still unclear how this maneuver will affect the individual services. At the moment, Facebook Messenger and Instagram store copies of messages on their servers, while WhatsApp, thanks to end-to-end encryption, ensures that communications remain confined to the archives of the devices involved and are not stored in the cloud.

What’s Zuckerberg’s goal with this move? To tie users even more closely to the platform, maximizing the effectiveness of the three most used messaging apps in the world.

This could give Facebook and Instagram easy access to markets they have always been excluded from, such as the Asian markets, where WhatsApp is widely used. Another positive outcome would affect the Marketplace: what better way for someone selling an item on Facebook to be contacted by people who aren’t even registered on the platform?

Curious to see the results of this unification of social networks and messaging, one question naturally arises when thinking about the future: what impact will this innovation have on our use of individual channels, and what will happen to the privacy of our conversations?