Facebook has some tricks up its sleeve and wants Messenger to be the only app you will ever need. It has been adding more functions into its app through the years – money sending features, location sharing, and games, to name a few.
Messenger, however, is mainly as it name suggests, about messaging.
“I always like to rewind to what people did before technology. Before the web era, we just had conversations.” This is according to David Marcus, Facebook’s Messenger Head. Messaging is the number one thing people do on-line. Marcus emphasized this observation at the Dublin Web Summit, Europe’s largest and best conference on technology.
It’s therefore not surprising that Messenger is now second to WhatsApp in terms of the number of users. Since Facebook created its standalone Messenger app, monthly users shot up from 300 million to 700 million in just a little over twelve months. Interestingly, WhatsApp is also recently owned by Facebook. It was bought for $19 billion and has 900 million users.
Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, Line, and WeChat are the top messenger apps with 3 billion accounts in existence. A culture has emerged with a demand for these apps to answer a variety of needs – from shopping to paying bills, making appointments, and the like. Messenger apps are now seen as a one-stop shop. Users worldwide are jamming the messenger apps with their service requests.
Facebook addresses this problem of a burgeoning market for messenger app services by making it easier for the user to easily connect with business contacts. It has eliminated the incorporation of multiple apps into messenger and simplified the process. Messenger identifies the user based on past conversations. Thus, users can easily open a chat window to a company and proceed to conduct business. This is Facebook’s Businesses on Messenger layer to its messaging app, which effectively speeds up messaging.
Did you know that Facebook also has its own AI? It’s called “M.” Many may be familiar with “Siri” (by Apple) or “Cortana” (by Microsoft) who are able to answer a myriad of questions from netizens. M, on the other hand, does not only dish out information. It actually helps users accomplish tasks.
As Facebook already contains a wealth of information, M may bring about the era when we will have access to limitless information without the need for page upon page of apps on our smartphones. This would be a revolutionary step and, indeed, perhaps one day Messenger will be the only app anyone will ever need.
