A report from TechCrunch indicates that Facebook is intending to turn its Messenger service into a platform that’s akin to Snapchat. At least similar in the sense that it’s going to become a messaging service which third parties can use to deliver content and communicate more directly with their audience.
However, Facebook’s goal is not to mimic Snapchat, it’s to make Messenger more useful. The company’s vision for the new platform functionality will be officially announced at Facebook’s F8 conference.
The initial focus of the new functions will be on how third parties can publish content and deliver information to audiences through Messenger. Think Snapchat’s ‘Discover’ tab with its ability for brands to deliver various forms of content directly to people who follow them
While this new functionality sounds a lot like Facebook is borrowing inspiration from Snapchat, the company reportedly drew its inspiration from chat apps in Asia like WeChat and Line.
Improved integration between the news feed and Messenger is also said to be among the Facebook’s announcements at F8, with speculation that there will be an ability to push content from the news feed directly to Messenger
If Messenger gains traction as a platform Facebook could eventually explore the addition of commerce features for third parties to use. With the the recent integration of friend to friend payments, Facebook could conceivably come up with a way for people to send payments to third parties in order to buy things.
Imagine being able to send a product deal out to your audience on Messenger, and they’re able to buy right then and there by tapping a button. That would be an insanely useful feature for Facebook to add in the future, but that’s purely my imagination running away on me, not anything that has been reported on.
Expect the majority of the F8 conference this month to focus on Messenger. Check back on March 25th and March 26th for for all the details coming out of it.
