Facebook’s plans to pivot into private messaging now have a desktop software component. The company said today that it would bring Messenger, its popular messaging client, to Mac and Windows later this year. Facebook made the announcement at its F8 developer conference in San Jose, California. There are far more mobile phones in the world than desktop computers, and the pace of development for computers has slowed accordingly. But for office workers who spend most of their days using a Mac or PC, messaging is a core function, and a dedicated messaging app could keep them inside Facebook’s ecosystem for hours a day. “People want to seamlessly message from any device, and sometimes they just want a little more space to share and connect with the people they care about most,” Facebook said in a statement. The move could also help Messenger turn a profit by making it a more attractive place for businesses to buy ads. The company wants to add other business tools to its messaging apps as well, making it a primary channel for businesses’ marketing and customer service efforts. The desktop version of Messenger will include audio calls, group video calls, and other features that are familiar from the mobile version. It’s likely based on Messenger.com, a web-based version of Facebook Messenger that has long been a faster alternative to using Messenger from Facebook’s web interface. As a frequent user of Messenger.com, I’m glad a desktop version is coming The desktop apps are now in testing and will arrive globally “later this year,” the company said.<doc-sep>To win chat, Facebook Messenger must be as accessible as SMS, yet more entertaining than Snapchat. Today, Messenger pushes on both fronts with a series of announcements at Facebook’s F8 conference. Those include that it will launch Mac and PC desktop apps, a faster and smaller mobile app, simultaneous video co-watching and a revamped Friends tab, where friends can use an emoji to tell you what they’re up to or down for. Facebook is also beefing up its tools for the 40 million active businesses and 300,000 developers on Messenger, up from 200,000 developers a year ago. Merchants will be able to let users book appointments at salons and masseuses, collect information with new lead generation chatbot templates and provide customer service to verified customers through authenticated m.me links. Facebook hopes this will boost the app beyond the 20 billion messages sent between people and businesses each month, which is up 10X from December 2017. “We believe you can build practically any utility on top of messaging,” says Facebook’s head of Messenger Stan Chudnovsky. But he stresses that “All of the engineering behind it is has been redone” to make it more reliable, and to comply with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s directive to unite the backends of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct. “Of course, if we didn’t have to do all that, we’d be able to invest more in utilities. But we feel that utilities will be less functional if we don’t do that work. They need to go hand-in-hand together. Utilities will be more powerful, more functional and more desired if built on top of a system that’s interoperable and end-to-end encrypted.” Here’s a look at the major Messenger announcements and why they’re important: Messenger Desktop – A stripped-down version of Messenger focused on chat, audio and video calls will debut later this year. Chudnovsky says it will remove the need to juggle and resize browser tabs by giving you an always-accessible version of Messenger that can replace some of the unofficial knock-offs. Especially as Messenger focuses more on businesses, giving them a dedicated desktop interface could convince them to invest more in lead generation and customer service through Messenger. [Update 4/2/20: Messenger for Mac and Windows launched today.] Project Lightspeed – Messenger is reengineering its app to cut 70 mb off its download size so people with low-storage phones don’t have to delete as many photos to install it. In testing, the app can cold start in merely 1.3 seconds, which Chudnovsky says is just 25 percent of where Messenger and many other apps are today. While Facebook already offers Messenger Light for the developing world, making the main app faster for everyone else could help Messenger swoop in and steal users from the status quo of SMS. The Lightspeed update will roll out later this year. Video Co-Watching – TechCrunch reported in November that Messenger was building a Facebook Watch Party-style experience that would let users pick videos to watch at the same time as a friend, with reaction cams of their faces shown below the video. Now in testing before rolling out later this year, users can pick any Facebook video, invite one or multiple friends and laugh together. Unique capabilities like this could make Messenger more entertaining between utilitarian chat threads and appeal to a younger audience Facebook is at risk of losing. Business Tools – After a rough start to its chatbot program a few years ago, where bots couldn’t figure out users’ open-ended responses, Chudnovsky says the platform is now picking up steam with 300,000 developers on board. One option that’s worked especially well is lead-generation templates, which teach bots to ask people standardized questions to collect contact info or business intent, so Messenger is adding more of those templates with completion reminders and seamless hand-off to a live agent. To let users interact with appointment-based businesses through a platform they’re already familiar with, Messenger launched a beta program for barbers, dentists and more that will soon open to let any business handle appointment booking through the app. And with new authenticated m.me links, a business can take a logged-in user on their website and pass them to Messenger while still knowing their order history and other info. Getting more businesses hooked on Messenger customer service could be very lucrative down the line. Close Friends and Emoji Status – Perhaps the most interesting update to Messenger, though, is its upcoming effort to help you make offline plans. Messenger is in the early stages of rebuilding its Friends tab into “Close Friends,” which will host big previews of friends’ Stories, photos shared in your chats, and let people overlay an emoji on their profile pic to show friends what they’re doing. We first reported this “Your Emoji” status update feature was being built a year ago, but it quietly cropped up in the video for Messenger Close Friends. This iteration lets you add an emoji like a home, barbell, low battery or beer mug, plus a short text description, to let friends know you’re back from work, at the gym, might not respond or are interested in getting a drink. These will show up atop the Close Friends tab as well as on location-sharing maps and more once this eventually rolls out. Facebook Messenger is the best poised app to solve the loneliness problem. We often end up by ourselves because we’re not sure which of our friends are free to hang out, and we’re embarrassed to look desperate by constantly reaching out. But with emoji status, Messenger users could quietly signal their intentions without seeming needy. This “what are you doing offline” feature could be a whole social network of its own, as apps like Down To Lunch have tried. But with 1.3 billion users and built-in chat, Messenger has the ubiquity and utility to turn a hope into a hangout. Click below to check out all of TechCrunch’s Facebook conference coverage from today:<doc-sep>Facebook today started up F8 2019, its annual developer’s conference. During the keynote address, the company revealed a few new features coming to Facebook Messenger, one of the most popular communication apps on the planet. The biggest new feature is the imminent launch of a desktop application for Windows and macOS. This app will allow you to use most of Messenger’s features — including group messaging, video chats, sending GIFs, etc. — without needing to visit Facebook or even have a browser open. Facebook says it is currently testing these apps for a rollout later this year. Another new feature on the way is group viewing. Using this feature, you and your friends will be able to watch a video together and even add commentary and reactions as the video plays back. It’s not clear which video platforms will support this feature, but Facebook suggests it will work for anything you can share on the Facebook site itself. In the vein of interacting with your friends, Facebook Messenger will also soon have a dedicated space for you and people you know to discover content relevant to your interests. This could be Stories, people, or even other messages. You will also be able to create messages and stories that only appear for certain people. Facebook Finally, to help keep that revenue stream coming in, Facebook is also introducing new ways for businesses to use Messenger. There will be new kinds of ads, such as a questionnaire ad that will allow businesses to learn about you quickly right from Messenger. There will also be new appointment functions so you can make a restaurant reservation during a chat with an employee of that restaurant without leaving your chat. The new, faster, leaner Facebook Messenger with these new features will roll out later this year. NEXT: Facebook Messenger gets dark mode on Android<doc-sep>
Yes, the major public clouds offer a lot. But what you may not know are the limitations, and how open clouds make the difference. Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. Ahead of its annual F8 developer conference in San Jose, Facebook has offered a glimpse into some of the things it’s cooking up for Messenger in what it touts as a “transition year” for the omnipresent messaging app. First up, the social networking giant announced Project LightSpeed, which constitutes a completely rebuilt Messenger that the company said will be less than 30MB in size — more than two-thirds smaller than the existing Messenger app — and capable of launching in less than two seconds. It’s worth noting here that Facebook already operates the Messenger Lite mobile app, which is around 25MB; however, that has been broadly designed for lower-end devices with limited RAM and has restricted functionality. It appears that Project LightSpeed aims to offer full Messenger features, built on an “entirely new code base,” Asha Sharma, director for Messenger consumer product, wrote in a blog post. The company hasn’t given a specific time frame for its launch but did say that the feature would “take time to roll out.” In other news, Facebook revealed that it’s launching a Messenger desktop app for Windows and MacOS. It has offered a desktop app for WhatsApp for several years already, though that app really just mirrors a user’s smartphone and lacks key functionality. It sounds like Messenger Desktop will be a true desktop app, with full functionality, including features such as group chat and video calls. In any case, this app is currently being tested and will launch around the world later in 2019. Going social Facebook teased a few other updates that are coming to Messenger, including new social features that build on Mark Zuckerberg’s recently stated mission to make Facebook and its associated properties more private. This effort includes what Zuckerberg referred to as a “digital living room,” and in the case of Messenger it will mean users get a “dedicated space” to find content from the people they message most through the platform. This will specifically involve “content from Stories to images and videos you share with each other, along with other features we’re building right now,” Sharma wrote. As this is still an early-stage product, Facebook didn’t reveal when it might be made available. Related to this is a new social video-watching feature that allows Messenger users to watch videos together at the same time. Again, this fits into the “digital living room” narrative proffered by Zuckerberg last month and will build bridges between Facebook’s apps by enabling you to share a video from Facebook to Messenger and invite others to join in. As with past upgrades, Facebook said it’s currently testing this new feature, which suggests that it will first be piloted with a subset of users — but the company does plan to launch it globally later this year. It’s clear that 2019 is shaping up to be a big year for Facebook, with reports surfacing back in January that the company was planning to unite its Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram apps while adding end-to-end encryption to all of its properties. In her blog post, Sharma today reiterated Facebook’s plans for Messenger on the privacy front, saying that the company is “committed to making Messenger end-to-end encrypted by default,” noting that this will also make Messenger work more seamlessly with the company’s other services. “We are working to be world class for our community for the primary things that people expect in a messaging app,” Sharma said. “We will make Messenger fast, private, interoperable, and a space for close friends and family.”