Facebook’s Messenger App Is About To Change In A Big Way, Again

Mark Zuckerberg just can’t help himself.

Less than a year after removing the Messenger function from Facebook and making it a separate app on devices, the Facebook founder has introduced further sweeping changes to their primary communication tool.

At its annual developer conference on Wednesday, it was revealed that third party developers were now able to “piggyback” on top of Messenger.

That means, very soon, you will be able to do a lot more during chats than hurl emojis back and forth.

So far, there are 40 apps ready to integrate with the conversational Facebook spin-off. According to The Guardian, one of these – named Zya Ditty – transforms your personal messages to the tunes of songs licensed for the service. (At this time, they include Sia’s “Chandelier” and The Kingsmen’s college anthem “Louie Louie”).

Other apps will allow for video chatting and the inclusion of gifs. Last week, Facebook introduced a ‘Payment’ button to Messenger that allowed the transfer of money between friends. Soon, that could extend to businesses.

Messenger already has more than 500 million monthly active users – closing in on the number of those with Facebook accounts: 600 million – but these new additions could help it grow even larger.

Clearly Zuckerberg has been following the expansion of hugely successful messaging apps like WeChat and KakaoTalk in Asia, and is hoping to follow suit.

Are you ready to re-learn Messenger, again?