The largest social network in the world, Facebook, announced that they are ready to allow people who don’t have a Facebook account to benefit from their Faccebook Messenger.
Representatives of the company talked about this on Wednesday, June 24th and said that Facebook wants to enable as many people as possible to connect, even if they don’t have an account.
All a person needs is a mobile phone now and, if he or she is not registered with Facebook, he or she can just select the option “Not on Facebook?”, and include their name and a photo before they open the application.
“With this update, more people can enjoy all the features that are available on Messenger – including photos, videos, group chats, voice and video calling, stickers and more. All you need is a phone number,” said Louis Boval, a representative of the company.
This is not just pure generosity, but an attempt to attract as many users as possible for their new app and create a standalone platform.
Innitially, it was Mark Zuckenberg himself who wanted to have Facebook users connect directly with various businesses such as retailers and restaurants.
Afterwards, the idea developed into something bigger and it is about to allow everyone to use the new platform.
For the time being, the application will only be available in the Unites States, Canada, Venezuela and Peru, but the company is planning to extend this service worldwide, just like it did with the application they purchased last year in February, WhatsApp, which now connects millions of people all over the globe.
Facebook users will find it even easier to connect with their friends because the application will search for contacts in their list of friends and match them up with the phone numbers enlisted in their profiles.
Facebook messenger already has about 600 million users and this number is expected to grow, along with the enhanced array of features available. These include video calling, group chats, stickers, photos and games, which makes the messaging service all the more attractive.
The new application will obviously represent competition to both Viber and WhatsApp, but it still remains to be seen how many users it is going to attract.
Image Source: playtech