The direct messaging service within Instagram will be replaced by a version of its Messenger app, Facebook Inc said on Wednesday. This is the first step by the largest social media company of the world in its plans for bundling together all of its messaging services across its suite of apps.
According to the company, the new changes will enable the users of each of the messaging services to find, message and hold video calls with their contacts in the other apps without the need of downloading the other apps.
Additionally, new and interesting features such as custom emojis and themes that have been used extensively on Messenger but were not previously available in Instagram's minimalist messaging product and other features such as disappearing messages will also be included in the changes.
The messaging icon in Instagram will change to the Messenger logo if and when users accept the update. Additionally, users of Instagram will also be able to forward messages to a maximum of five people at a time with these changes – which is available on Messenger but not on Instagram users.
"The goal of this exercise is to get to the point where we build something once and then it works across, so we don't have to repeat the same thing multiple times," said Messenger chief Stan Chudnovsky.
The company made an initial launch of the changes service on Wednesday in a few unspecified countries. The company then plans to make a global roll out of the new messaging system globally.
Early last year, his vision of for cross-app messaging was first announced by Facebook’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Eventually, the aim of the company is to integrate WhatsApp with the other messaging services and extend the end-to-end encryption available on Whatsapp across all of the three messaging services.
Analysts say that this new move by the company is likely to become a part of the antitrust deliberations over Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as a number of probes are being conducted currently. It could be more difficult for regulators to break up the company because of the binding together of the services, said antitrust experts raising concerns over the plans of the company.
There would not be swapping of any new categories of user data between Instagram and Messenger apart from what has already been shared between the two services because it has been years that the same back-end infrastructure has been used by the two messaging platforms, Chudnovsky said.
(Source:www.devdiscourse.com)
According to the company, the new changes will enable the users of each of the messaging services to find, message and hold video calls with their contacts in the other apps without the need of downloading the other apps.
Additionally, new and interesting features such as custom emojis and themes that have been used extensively on Messenger but were not previously available in Instagram's minimalist messaging product and other features such as disappearing messages will also be included in the changes.
The messaging icon in Instagram will change to the Messenger logo if and when users accept the update. Additionally, users of Instagram will also be able to forward messages to a maximum of five people at a time with these changes – which is available on Messenger but not on Instagram users.
"The goal of this exercise is to get to the point where we build something once and then it works across, so we don't have to repeat the same thing multiple times," said Messenger chief Stan Chudnovsky.
The company made an initial launch of the changes service on Wednesday in a few unspecified countries. The company then plans to make a global roll out of the new messaging system globally.
Early last year, his vision of for cross-app messaging was first announced by Facebook’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Eventually, the aim of the company is to integrate WhatsApp with the other messaging services and extend the end-to-end encryption available on Whatsapp across all of the three messaging services.
Analysts say that this new move by the company is likely to become a part of the antitrust deliberations over Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as a number of probes are being conducted currently. It could be more difficult for regulators to break up the company because of the binding together of the services, said antitrust experts raising concerns over the plans of the company.
There would not be swapping of any new categories of user data between Instagram and Messenger apart from what has already been shared between the two services because it has been years that the same back-end infrastructure has been used by the two messaging platforms, Chudnovsky said.
(Source:www.devdiscourse.com)
