Facebook celebrates the Messenger app’s 10th birthday with new features; How to use it

Facebook is celebrating 10 years of its standalone Messenger app on iPhone and Android with a collection of new features to celebrate. iMessage clients will be acquainted with a few of these features, including sending cash between friends, virtual balloons, and message effects for text.

Facebook’s first messaging app is authoritatively 10 years old, and the organization is celebrating the event with a small bunch of new features and birthday-themed updates.

Messenger is presenting “birthday” versions of a few of its current features, for example, birthday soundmoji, AR effects, stickers, chat themes, and other effects. Clients can likewise send cash to friends as a “birthday gift” with Facebook Pay, which is basically similar to some other person-to-person payment in Messenger yet adds some new celebratory animations.

To begin, Facebook is trying its hand at a new category of a game called Poll Games. Messenger’s Poll feature will presently incorporate a section for Most Like To where friends can answer questions as is who “most like to remember this feature exist next week?”, etc.

Messenger clients in the US would now be able to send cash over Facebook Pay through Messenger simpler with integration from Facebook’s birthday calendar.

All of us know about Facebook and its main messaging service, Messenger. It began life as the messaging component of the Facebook social network and keeping in mind that it actually is, it’s presently its standalone service also, can be used without a Facebook account, and has been getting a lot of features. Messenger may not every person’s favorite — it’s surely not mine — however, it’s as yet a huge application with a user base in the billions. This month, it’s celebrating its 10th anniversary, and Facebook is taking the opportunity to present some new features.

The app is likewise adding a new type of mini-game to chats with “poll games.” The feature permits friends in group threads to weigh in on lighthearted polls that ask which member from the chat is “most likely” to accomplish something like miss a flight or fight zombies. Both the new birthday effects, poll games, and birthday gifting are carrying out at this point. Messenger likewise saw a new “word effects” feature coming “soon” that permits clients to match an emoji with a particular word or expression to trigger an in-chat animation like iMessage’s special effects.

The updates highlight just how much Messenger has changed in its first decade of presence. Originally launched in 2011, the app developed from a basic chat app to one so bloated with features it’s been updated at least three times in the last two years. It’s been home to a significant number of Facebook’s more aggressive — however not generally successful — features throughout the long term.

All the more recently, Facebook has been weaving Messenger all the more tightly into its different services by pushing clients to link their Instagram DMs with their Messenger account. Facebook wants to bring this equivalent sort of “cross-app communication” to WhatsApp also, however, the organization hasn’t said a lot regarding how or when it could occur. Moreover, it’s as yet not satisfactory when Messenger will turn on end-to-end encryption as a default setting.

During a call with columnists, Facebook’s Messenger chief Stan Chudnovsky said that the rollout of encryption as a default is moving gradually in part because of the sheer number of features in the messaging app. “We need to rebuild all these features in [an] end-to-end encrypted environment, and make them fully capable,” he said, noting that Messenger is still continuously adding new features. “It’s almost like we are constantly trying to catch up with ourselves.”

Messenger will likewise acquire a new Word Effects feature that pairs words with emoji. You set the trigger word in your chat, then, at that point, that emoticon will make a full-screen effect over your chat when it’s used. Think iMessage triggering balloons when you say congratulations, except it’s customizable. Word Effects aren’t prepared today, however, search for the new trick in a future update.

At long last, Facebook is making it simpler to share Facebook contacts with friends over chat with a new Share Contact action. This makes sharing a friend’s profile as basic as sharing a post or photo.

Poll Your Friends with “Most Likely To” Games

One of the new ones being acquainted with the app is Poll Games. This isn’t really something that will further develop functionality, however, it actually looks cool to have on the off chance that you do group chats with friends. It supports playing games and asking your friends who in the group is “most likely” to do certain things. The app can give you prompts to begin, or you can likewise place on your own.

Today, Facebook is presenting Poll Games on Messenger. You would now be able to play “Most likely to” in polls to assist you with finding what your friends truly think about topics as is who “most likely to give gifts on their own birthday? 🥳”, “most likely to fight zombies while everyone else runs away? 🧟‍♀️” and “most likely to miss their flight? ✈️”, or you can write your own prompt. To play a poll game in your group chat, tap Polls and select the “Most likely to” tab to pick a question and select the names of chat members to be incorporated as likely answers.

Birthday Cash Gifting Using Facebook Pay

What’s the best birthday present? Believe it or not: cool, hard cash. Presently you can send cash gifts on somebody’s birthday, directly through the app, powered by Facebook’s own payment framework, Facebook Pay. That gift can be instantly deposited in the other individual’s bank account once they affirm their Facebook Pay details.

In the US, we’re acquainting another way to get cash gifts straightforwardly through Messenger. At the point when a friend sends you a cash gift for your birthday, you’ll be notified on Messenger and Facebook with their gift message wrapped and joined by virtual balloons. When you affirm your Facebook Pay details, the cash gift will be right away kept in your bank account. To send a birthday cash gift, go to the Facebook mobile app and tap the button that shows up close by your friend’s birthday posts in your Facebook News Feed or their profile.

Birthday Expression Tools

To amp up the celebratory mindset, evaluate our new Birthday chat theme and our extraordinarily curated “Messenger is 10!” sticker pack. Fill the sky with purple and blue balloons with our Birthday Balloon 360 background and blow out birthday candles with our Birthday AR effect.

You can likewise send a catchy birthday song 🎂 Soundmoji and use a Message Effect to add an explosion of confetti to your celebratory message or even wrap it up with a bow.

A New Way to Share Contacts

At last, you currently additionally have the option to share contacts however Messenger. While the best approach to do this recently was to send an individual’s Facebook profile link, presently you can share a Messenger contact straightforwardly à la WhatsApp to another person by holding on to somebody’s name and tapping “Share contact.”

With regards to celebrations, more is always better! Facebook is presenting another way for you to effectively share Facebook contacts with friends through Messenger. Just select the contact you want to share, access the chat settings, and tap Share Contact under the More Actions section.

Sneak Peek: Customize Your Conversations with Word Effects

These features ought to show up for Facebook Messenger clients in the next few weeks or months, along with special birthday effects, themes, and stickers. Facebook likes to take as much time as is needed to deliver new features, so don’t be shocked on the off chance that you don’t see them all presently. We haven’t detected any of these new ones on Android at this point, either — that is the reason we’re using iOS screenshots — yet they ought to be accessible on all platforms once Facebook begins flipping the switch for additional individuals.

Facebook is additionally excited to share a sneak peek of Word Effects, a new way to pair words with emojis that have importance to you and your friends. When used in your conversation, these words will trigger the selected emoji to fill your screen. You currently have the ideal method to feature inside jokes, remember your memories and add additional enjoyment to your #1 phrases, similar to that song lyric stuck in your head or “Happy Birthday” (Facebook propose the 🎉 emoji). Word Effects will be coming to Messenger soon, so get invigorated for that update.