We knew this was coming, as all its competitors are moving in this direction. Facebook finally announced that their Messenger app is now an open platform where developers can develop their own apps to enhance the users’ messaging and communications experience. They’ve also released the initial 40 or so apps which allows people to express themselves in more creative and multi-media rich ways.
Once your Messenger has been updated, you’ll see an additional icon that will lead you to a whole slew of 3rd party apps to make your conversation with friends more exciting by adding GIFs, memes, photos, videos, audio clips, even your face superimposed on animated clips. So you don’t need to leave the messenger app when you feel that the only appropriate response to something your friend says is a hilarious meme. When you receive a message from one of the apps, just click on the reply button and you will be switched to the approproate app to respond.
Another major announcement that Facebook made during the F8 conference regarding Messenger is that they’re bringing a preview for their upcoming Business on Messenger feature. It will bring users and businesses together to facilitate e-commerce transactions. You can receive order confirmations, shipping status updates, asking and receiving answers from the businesses. And all these interactions can be found in just one thread so that businesses can keep track of the customer’s needs as well.
The Messenger Platform has been rolling out to Android devices, but it seems that the desktop platform hasn’t received it yet. Business on Messenger is still not available and will be launching with selected partners initially.
SOURCE: Facebook
