Facebook Messenger’s latest update makes starting a conversation on the platform easier than ever before. Instead of the traditional queue of messages organized in chronological order found in the inbox, Messenger will show more information to improve user experience.
“With these updates, we’re aiming to make Messenger simpler to use by presenting more relevant information,” wrote Facebook in a newsroom announcement. “We look forward to building even more ways to make using Messenger better in the future.”
While Facebook Messenger’s inbox is still going to have a few recent conversations at the very top, there will also be a “Favorites” section where users can quickly access conversations with people they frequently message and an “Active Now” section that shows when someone is available in the moment. The update also includes birthday reminders so you can send a private wish to your Facebook Messenger contacts.
“We believe birthdays are actually a really important thing, especially for your close friends,” said David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook, to TIME. “Birthdays, for [most] of your friends, you’re probably more inclined to write on their Facebook page. Because you write, and you forget about it, and you don’t have to engage in a conversation. Whereas, your really close friends, you probably want to message them on their birthdays.”
Facebook Messenger, which boasts over 900 million users, will see more changes this year, according to Marcus.
“The things that we’re really interested in and we’ve talked about earlier this year is everything that happens in real time,” Marcus told TIME. “Our first entry into that was voice calling maybe two years ago, then last summer we enabled video calling and that’s doing amazingly well. And we’re really intrigued by, what are the next forms of real time communication? So we’re thinking about how do we actually reinvent a little bit those real-time communications. As we shared earlier this year, we also want to make photo sharing really awesome inside of Messenger, and so that’s another area we’re looking to invest in.”
Facebook has implemented several changes to its Messenger app this year. At its F8 developer conference, Facebook announced the implementation of chatbot support to Messenger. The “ Bots for Messenger ” feature is part of the latest Messenger update — a previous update introduced a “Bots and Businesses” section.
