After almost a decade, Facebook’s Messenger functionality is returning to the mobile app, after Meta announced that the once standalone app would be absorbed into its primary app.
Latest statistics revealed that Facebook Messenger, which inherited its own app in 2014, has grown exponentially, seeing 140 billion messages sent each day.
Meanwhile, Instagram’s short form videos or Reels, have been shared almost one billion times through the sister app’s DMs, as well as Facebook’s Messengers.
Head of Facebook, Tom Alison said in an effort to drive further growth to their short form video offerings, they would be reintroducing the Messenger to the primary app, to make it easier to share and discover videos.
“Part of delivering the best experience to people using AI is to make it easier for people to share what they discover on Facebook via messaging, when, where and how it suits their needs, without needing to switch to another app. We are testing the ability for people to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app and you’ll see us expand this testing soon,” Alison said.
Facebook is also expected to encourage the growth of communities on its platform, as Meta has also been noted to enhance functionality to support this in its instant messaging service – WhatsApp.
“We started introducing community chats to some Facebook Groups last year as a way for people to connect more deeply with their online communities in real time around the topics they care about. And, the early results are promising. Across Facebook and Messenger, we saw the number of people trying community chats increase by 50% in December 2022,” Alison said.
Speculation has risen among online communities that Facebook has been on a decline in terms of usage, however, the company bashed rumours stating that it had reached its highest user base of 2 billion daily active, making it the world largest social network.
The TikTok threat
Facebook’s announcement of Messenger’s return to the app comes amid the threat of strong growth from Chinese-based short-form video platform, TikTok.
However, it is not just Facebook deeming TikTok as a threat, as other social networks and digital platforms have also set plans to tackle the short-form video space.
Communities-based content aggregation platform, Reddit, recently refreshed how its videos are displayed to users offering scrolling functionality, with options for quick engagement through reactions and comments, much like TikTok.
IOL Tech