Facebook has revamped its Messenger service, letting users send content like GIFs, photos, videos, and more from third-party apps within the Facebook Messenger app. The move means that app developers can now build Facebook Messenger support into their apps, making them directly accessible within the Facebook Messenger app. Facebook has already worked with more than […]
Facebook has revamped its Messenger service, letting users send content like GIFs, photos, videos, and more from third-party apps within the Facebook Messenger app.
The move means that app developers can now build Facebook Messenger support into their apps, making them directly accessible within the Facebook Messenger app.
Facebook has already worked with more than 40 developers, with a number of apps already offering messenger integration.
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the move at his firm’s F8 developers conference in San Francisco.
He said more than 600 million people already used Messenger at least once a month to express themselves, and that allowing other social networks and services to directly post to it would make “conversations better”.
Among the new apps unveiled are ways to post:
• Looped animated images known as Gifs sourced from the sports TV service ESPN and elsewhere
• Still images from the picture hosting site Imgur
• Computer-generated animal cartoon messages with recorded audio via Talking Tom
• Forecasts from the Weather Channel service
• E-cards from the humour site Jibjab
• Audio files from the Sound Clip
It builds on a move to allow US-based users to send money to and from each other via Messenger, which Facebook announced last week, and the earlier inclusion of Voip (voice over internet protocol) calls and stickers
.
Zuckerberg also revealed plans to launch an associated service called Businesses on Messenger.
Using the app instead of email, the public will be able to hold conversations with companies from which they buy goods, or have other interactions with.
