As of 2019, Facebook has an active user base of 2.38 billion, out of which more than 1.3 billion are using Facebook Messenger app every month. And in an attempt to increase the reach, the social media giant has now announced a bunch of reforms and new features to revamp the app and make it more accessible and entertaining for the users.
At the F8 conference of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg committed to building a “privacy-focussed” social networking platform and announced end-to-end encryption for the Messenger app. The much-needed encryption will come after the company’s image got marred after Facebook multitudinously confirmed the mismanagement of user data.
Apart from that, it is working on “LightSpeed” and bring a lighter and faster version of the app for iOS later this year, which would take up less space and drain less battery. The upgrade will specifically for the iOS users, as there is already a lite version of the app available for the Android users.
Facebook also said it will launch the macOS and Windows desktop apps for Messenger, where users will be able to watch videos together with friends. The friends will not just be able to invite and watch videos together, they will also be a reaction cam to capture their reactions while watching the video. The focus, however, will be kept on chats, audio, and video call through the messaging app, without having to surf through the browser tabs, said Facebook.
A dedicated space will be created for close friends, where they will be able to use an emoji and let each other know about what they are up to, or put out Instagram or Snapchat-like stories.
Along with that Facebook announced it has around 40 million active businesses running on the platform every month, many of which operate through Messenger. Finally, for them the company is also about to bring new ways through which the businesses will be able to connect with their customer base. Especially in appointment-based businesses, the bots will help the customers connect with the business after due verification. With over 300,000 developers working on it, they are now training the bots to ask standard questions to the customers. The company is hoping that the increased accessibility will offer a boost to its ‘marketplace’.
