In integrating its multiple messaging apps, Facebook has taken its biggest step yet, enabling select users on Messenger and Instagram to connect app-to-app. Instagram is also receiving a major redesign of its DM system, in addition to the introduction of cross-platform messaging, which will be extended with features taken from Messenger.
New messaging features for Instagram include missed messages, selfie stickers, personalized emoji, chat colors, new ways to delete unwanted messages, and the launch of the Watch Together function of Messenger, which enables you to watch videos during a video call with mates.
If they choose, users will be able to ignore the update, but Facebook will no doubt bet that access to new functionality would inspire them to say yes. Users on Instagram and Messenger can also check for accounts concurrently in all platforms, in addition to cross-platform messaging. Users, if they wish, can opt-out of these functions.
It is unknown, however, exactly when and where cross-platform messaging for Instagram and Messenger will be available. The functionality is currently being “reviewed in select markets, according to CNN, and will grow internationally in the coming months.” There is no public timetable for when Facebook will also begin to incorporate its other behemoth of messaging, WhatsApp.
The news is part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious strategy to turn his social media empire from one focused on public spaces to one with a greater emphasis on private contact in 2019. As Zuckerberg clarified in 2019, “private messaging, ephemeral tales, and small groups are by far the fastest-growing areas of online communication.” Facebook aims to capture as much of this market as possible by incorporating messages into its different applications, each of which has more than 1 billion users.
Past measures also included the introduction of an app for small businesses that allows them to monitor Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram pages and profiles, and a new Accounts Center tool that allows everyone to access their login details on different assets of Facebook.
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It is a huge infrastructure challenge to combine these services, particularly for the coming WhatsApp integration, which is encrypted end-to-end. But regulators, who are wary of Facebook’s supremacy in mobile messaging, may present a bigger obstacle.
Conclusion:
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for the organization to be dissolved following Zuckerberg’s declaration of his ambition to incorporate messaging on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger in 2019. Hughes claimed that Facebook, with users unable to turn to any viable rivals, has become a social media monopoly.
