Facebook Messenger Stand-Alone Chat App

Facebook has just (paper) launched its Facebook Messenger App, which effectively focuses on the text communication aspect of Facebook, while bypassing the rest of the Facebook experience. This may be a good idea as the Facebook app has become bloated in my opinion. It has been getting slower and seem to consume bandwidth like there is no tomorrow.

For those to use Facebook as a communication platform (text messages), this app should make their lives better. Finally, Group conversations is included, along with an optional location-sharing feature.With this, Facebook is really trying to service users where SMS would have been used. It may be successful, depending on whether the notifications are done as fast as SMS. The obvious perk is that SMS is a paid service, while Facebook chat is free. Would Facebook try to monetize this later by adding geo-targeted ads? We don’t know, but with the recent rumors of ads into user streams, one may wonder.

At the moment, the App is not yet available, but the product page suggests that it will come to iOS and Android first. What do you think of this? Are you a heavy Facebook chat user?

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Breaking, Cellphones
Tags: Facebook, Smartphones, sms, text