What is Facebook Messenger
The Facebook messenger is an application which is capable of supporting messaging via voice and text. This application is integrated with the web-based chat feature. Facebook users are able to use this app to chat with friends through their mobile phones and on the Facebook website as well. Facebook reported that 600 million users are using Facebook messenger in 2015.
Messenger for mobile phones was released to support Android, iOS, and Blackberry OS. Facebook messenger was released in countries like Australia, South Asia, Indonesia, South Africa, and Venezuela where the need for a Facebook is not compulsory to use the Messenger. A name and a phone number are sufficient to start using Facebook Messenger for mobile. This feature was included into Facebook Messenger to give it a competitive edge over similar applications like WhatsApp. Facebook also added a text replacement messaging client. An overlay chat system from Facebook home also comes in the form of “chat heads” with Facebook Messenger.
Window Phone 8 is also able to support Facebook Messenger from March 5th, 2014. This does not support chat heads and voice messaging but has other features that are present in the Android and iOS apps. In April 2014, Facebook took steps to remove the messaging app and requested the users to download the Messenger. A Facebook Messenger app for iPad was also released. This was specially designed to support iPad. This app included an interface with threads and current conversation on the same screen. In April 2015, video calling was introduced on Facebook Messenger.
How Does Facebook Messenger Work?
Facebook started the migration to Facebook Messenger by notifying users that they will not be able to send messages from Facebook in future and they would have to download the Facebook Messenger app to do the same. Then, Facebook moved forward by introducing an app that would open the Messenger. This was an optional feature. But now all users will need to migrate to this protocol to use Facebook Messenger. An operating system that is too old to support this messenger app will be the only ones that will be spared from this migration.
Mark Zukerberg the CEO of Facebook said that the reason behind the standalone was to make it a more focused application. This will give the user more facilities to replying messages. The problem faced by the messaging application inside the main app was that it was slow, not optimal, and buried in. The new Facebook tab is fully featured and the standalone app will provide a better experience to the user than the previous version.
However, this method of forcing the user to download the app could become unpopular. Not all the users will want to be forced to put an extra Facebook app on the home screen or folder. Most will obviously want to keep it simple by using one app which provides all its features. This could also be the start of each of its functions having their own dedicated apps. However, the advantage of using one dedicated app is that it is faster and has better stability than it being inside Facebook itself. After they experience the advantage of standalone apps, they many want to change to the Facebook Messenger app. The Messenger also has features like its look, sounds, and performance.
The problem is users always like to do what they want, and the choice should always be theirs. This has to be done with their consent. But from what we could see, this will eventually and slowly take root and users of Facebook may want to change to the standalone app gradually. It is ultimately up to the users to decide.
The reason behind the standalone app is actually the competition that has grown in the last few years. Facebook is actually fighting a war to try and stay afloat in the world of messaging. Its main competitor Whatsapp , wechat, kik, and line are just a few examples. The clear advantage that Facebook has is the user base of Facebook. These same users will find it easy to migrate to the standalone app which will mostly not require a setting up of the account as with the other messaging apps.
As a conclusion from the above discussion, Facebook is actually trying to compete with other applications which provide messaging features. And it could be well and possible that Facebook would be able to win this battle. Facebook messenger has features like reaching friends wherever they are, message friends, start a group chat, reaching friends via mobile & web, getting push notifications, having the feature to get to know who has seen your messages, attaching photos with messages. Many more other features give it a great competitive edge comparing it with its competitors. But its up to the user to decide if they want the experience this standalone app.
