While Facebook might not be your favorite social media platform out there, it is quite large and still used by millions. A new round of changes are headed to Android and iOS in the next week in regards to the app and what you will be able to do. As it sits right now you can chat will the messenger directly in the Facebook app. However, Facebook also has a Facebook Messenger app that is a dedicated standalone messaging client that is used specifically for chitter chatter. It seemed silly at the time to have the same access in both apps. Apparently there is a migration underway that will disable the chat function from the main social network app and require you to use the Facebook Messenger app to continue your conversations.
“In the next few days, we’re continuing to notify more people who if they want to send and receive Facebook messages, they’ll need to download the Messenger app. As we’ve said, our goal is to focus development efforts on making Messenger the best mobile messaging experience possible and avoid the confusion of having separate Facebook mobile messaging experiences. Messenger is used by more than 200 million people every month, and we’ll keep working to make it an even more engaging way to connect with people.â€
I can already hear the wheels turning and the hater comments coming. While I may not be a personal fan of Facebook, this change is something we have seen coming for a while now. G+ operates in the same fashion if you stop to think about it. We have G+ for the social network side of things and Hangouts for our conversations and chats. On the Google front though, it has always been that way, where as Facebook has not.
The change was forced in Europe back in April and Facebook says it saw “positive results” in terms of engagement. If you do a fair amount of chatting through Facebook you may as well grab the free Facebook Messenger app today and start getting used to it now before the service is completely disabled in the Facebook app.
