Those of us who have used Facebook, out of necessity or otherwise, may remember a time where its messaging component, was a part of the main app on mobile. Back in 2014, the parent company now known as Meta decided to split the two into distinct apps. Then in 2021, there was talk about having some of the features of Messenger integrated back to the main app. Now, the company has shared one aspect of that.
In a recent blog post, Meta says that it is “testing the ability for people to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app”, with an expansion to this test coming “soon”. The post also says that the company is looking to “build more ways to integrate messaging features in Facebook”, which will happen “over the coming year”.
That being the case, it’s not a confirmation that Messenger will be reintegrated into the Facebook app for mobile devices. Not yet anyway, since all the blog post says is that users will be able to access the inbox. It still remains to be seen if users can actually reply to messages this way without the standalone messaging app.
The entry the messaging inbox comes as a part of a blog post that mainly talks about the company’s AI endeavours. For now, it only mentions the use of AI in discovery, and not the personas for WhatsApp and Messenger that we saw reports of before last month.
Meta also claims that “Another part of delivering the best experiences to people using AI is to make it easier for people to share what they discover on Facebook via messaging”. And to do this “without needing to switch to another app”, at that. But if that’s the end goal, one wonders why the company thought splitting the two was a good idea in the first place, nearly a whole decade ago. After all, users’ inclination to share what they discover on Facebook probably hasn’t changed in the past decade, whether or not AI was involved.
(Source: Meta)
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