The Messenger team has been aggressively tweaking and adding many features
The popular standalone messaging app by Facebook has added a new feature to it's already long list - video calls.
As the days go by, it looks like the utility for Facebook’s Messenger app keeps on increasing. The social networking giant announced recently that a new iOS and Android update for Messenger will give users the ability to video chat with other users. And this is not the usual USA-specific update — the feature is initially coming to 18 markets around the globe, including the UK, France, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal and the US, with plans to cover more countries over the next few months.
To initiate a video call, users have to tap the video camera icon inside a message on the upper right-hand side of the screen. If both the caller and the person on the other end have a stable connection (preferably 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi), striking up a video conversation should be a piece of cake, according to Facebook.
Adding video chat to Messenger’s features pretty much seemed like the logical thing to do, something Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook Messenger’s Head of Product confirms.”More and more of everything starts from a text conversation. We think the same thing will happen with video,” he told Mashable.
The Messenger team has been aggressively tweaking and adding many features to the service in recent months, making it much more than a text-based messaging app.
Right from peer-to-peer payments and customer service, to making it an open platform for third-party developers like Effectify and Bitmoji to build on top of, the company is going all out to strike a balance between attracting young users as well as convincing others of its versatility and utility.
With video calling, Facebook is heading towards making the Messenger experience an even better one. Facebook once positioned Messenger as a better solution in countries with faster devices and Internet speeds, while WhatsApp, which the company acquired in 2014, better served users in emerging markets.
The prevalence of smartphones in many countries and faster mobile Internet speeds has acted as a catalyst in the quick rise of live video streaming apps such as Periscope and Meerkat, so the potential for any app related to relaying videos is immense. Facebook, for one, is shrewd enough as a company to recognise this and while it might not be in direct competition against the live broadcast service, given their history of expanding, there’s a good chance they will be, in future.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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