Facebook's little baby Messenger is finally 10 years old and the platform is not holding back while celebrating its birthday.
Facebook is adding a bunch of new elements to celebrate the 10-year anniversary including stickers, themes, and effects. The platform even altered its payment services to fit a more festive theme. The platform claims users can now send birthday presents in form of cash to other users when in reality it's the same process using Facebook Pay but decorated with a few festive accessories.
Next, Facebook mentioned a new feature that will be rolling in along with all the others mentioned above. This new feature is an in-chat engaging poll game that will allow users to answer questions like who is more likely to have gone scuba-diving or who has most likely peed in a public swimming pool. The questions are really light-hearted, exactly what a fun birthday party conversation or game goes like, which we feel was the intent behind this poll game.
Another feature that won't be rolling out any soon is a play at words where Messenger will prompt up animations related to words sent in the chat. This isn't an entirely creative element since we have seen it on iMessages but for what it's worth, we appreciate Facebook for adding it in.
These new features are all created to highlight the revolutionary changes users have seen Messenger go through from when it launched to date. The initial chat application has evolved so massively that it might even be considered to have the same importance as Whatsapp. We've been a part of the journey, the ups and the downs and we've experienced all the massive failures and the hits together, which is exactly what Facebook aims to celebrate.
While this is all fun and games, we are a little disappointed to see Facebook working towards features with little importance instead of those that actually matter. For instance merging Whatsapp and Messenger. Messenger has already incorporated Instagram in some way through the linking of DMs however the connection with Whatsapp has yet to be made. Since Whatsapp is a chat application as well like Messenger, we expected that change to take place first. We still look forward to the change however we're not sure if we'll be able to satisfy our needs very soon.
Another major change that Messenger should have by now is the end-to-end encryption of messages. Messenger is a huge platform with a lot of users and not having enough security from the platform is a major let-down. When asked about this issue, Facebook commented on how they will have to modify every single element to have the be end-to-end encrypted and that would take forever since Messenger keeps adding new features everyday.
While we are excited and happy about the 10-year anniversary and its gifts, we would also like Messenger to bring about changes we actually need.
Read next: Facebook Is Reincorporating Audio And Video Calls Into Its Interface, After Messenger Using Them Since 2014
Facebook is adding a bunch of new elements to celebrate the 10-year anniversary including stickers, themes, and effects. The platform even altered its payment services to fit a more festive theme. The platform claims users can now send birthday presents in form of cash to other users when in reality it's the same process using Facebook Pay but decorated with a few festive accessories.
Next, Facebook mentioned a new feature that will be rolling in along with all the others mentioned above. This new feature is an in-chat engaging poll game that will allow users to answer questions like who is more likely to have gone scuba-diving or who has most likely peed in a public swimming pool. The questions are really light-hearted, exactly what a fun birthday party conversation or game goes like, which we feel was the intent behind this poll game.
Another feature that won't be rolling out any soon is a play at words where Messenger will prompt up animations related to words sent in the chat. This isn't an entirely creative element since we have seen it on iMessages but for what it's worth, we appreciate Facebook for adding it in.
These new features are all created to highlight the revolutionary changes users have seen Messenger go through from when it launched to date. The initial chat application has evolved so massively that it might even be considered to have the same importance as Whatsapp. We've been a part of the journey, the ups and the downs and we've experienced all the massive failures and the hits together, which is exactly what Facebook aims to celebrate.
While this is all fun and games, we are a little disappointed to see Facebook working towards features with little importance instead of those that actually matter. For instance merging Whatsapp and Messenger. Messenger has already incorporated Instagram in some way through the linking of DMs however the connection with Whatsapp has yet to be made. Since Whatsapp is a chat application as well like Messenger, we expected that change to take place first. We still look forward to the change however we're not sure if we'll be able to satisfy our needs very soon.
Another major change that Messenger should have by now is the end-to-end encryption of messages. Messenger is a huge platform with a lot of users and not having enough security from the platform is a major let-down. When asked about this issue, Facebook commented on how they will have to modify every single element to have the be end-to-end encrypted and that would take forever since Messenger keeps adding new features everyday.
While we are excited and happy about the 10-year anniversary and its gifts, we would also like Messenger to bring about changes we actually need.
Read next: Facebook Is Reincorporating Audio And Video Calls Into Its Interface, After Messenger Using Them Since 2014
