This year’s F8 was full of surprises. Facebook announced that many of its products would go through an exhaustive re-modelling, however it was the news about Messenger that made the headlines.
Also Read: Facebook Messenger Reaches Half A Billion Users
It’s true that, upon hearing the announcement about Messenger adding money transfer functionality, there were bells ringing. As we had written back then, we were quite sure that Facebook would use this feature as an intermediate step for something bigger. We were right.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that it will open Messenger’s API to developers that want to explore it and create apps that integrate with it. This move will reportedly help users discover creative new apps to enhance their Messenger experience. For instance, users will have the option to install apps without leaving Messenger, just by tapping ‘install’ when a friend sends a message from a Messenger Platform app.
Moreover, each time a users sends a message through a platform app, the recipient will be able to respond by seamlessly transferring to the platform app and selecting the desired response. You can see an example in the images that follow.
By referring to Messenger as a “platform” and not as an “app”, Zuckerberg promises to bring many more functionalities and integrations to its standalone Messenger, currently used by over 600 million users. Let’s see.
Images courtesy of Facebook
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