Facebook Messenger released its 2017 year in review saying there are now over 1.3 billion people using its platform each month to connect with friends and family. But that’s not all.
It’s been 25 years since the first text message was sent, and oh boy how far we have come since then. That first text message began the revolution that social media continued, changing our lives fundamentally ever since. There are now over 7 billion conversations taking place on Messenger every day, and 260 million new conversation threads started. It’s not just about text, nowadays. Now, it’s all about group video chat with masks, emojis, or GIFs, or videos, and much much more.
Today, there are 1.3 billion people using the platform to communicate with each other. Messenger has developed according to their needs, adding features and shaping trends during the year.
In 2017, video chat took a massive leap forward. Not content with just one-to-one video chats, users wanted group video chats. Messenger gave them that. Then came AR features like masks, filters, and reactions. There were 17 billion real-time video chats on Messenger last year – double compared to 2016 – and people video chatted from around the world – including Antarctica.
2017 led to the rise of visual messaging as a “new universal language,” making conversations a lot more fun and a lot more impactful. Facebook’s camera – filled with features – helped make visual messaging a lot better, but emojis still ruled the day and rocked our world. Would you be surprised to know that
GIFs didn’t do badly either. Messenger users shared over 18 billion GIFs in 2017 so far. On average, there are over 7 billion conversations taking place on Messenger every day in 2017.
2017 also showed the power of groups. 2.5 million new groups were created on Messenger EACH day, with an average of 10 people in each. Reactions in chats launched in March, and since then people have shared over 11 billion reactions.
And in case you’re wondering, the most popular reaction in a group conversation is 😆. Any guesses what the most popular reaction in 1:1 conversations is?
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