The world of instant messaging is becoming conveniently intimate simply with a stroke of sharing photos and videos, thus replacing SMS text messages.
Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is certainly making a push towards becoming a standalone messaging client. This move arrives as soon as Facebook dropped its messenger service from the main Facebook app in April, launching a separate application in the app stores worldwide.
Previously, it added video sharing plus photo uploads and camera access in an update for iOS and Android in April. In the new Facebook Messenger update that was rolled out last Thursday, you can now tap and hold the button to write your own mini video series. Once you lift your finger, the video will be sent. Within a 15-second timeframe, the in-app videos are of the same length as videos on Instagram – also owned by Facebook.
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On top of the new video function, Facebook Messenger users can now ‘like’ a message or a post with a bigger thumbs-up, simply by pressing and holding the ‘Like’ button to register a bigger ‘Like’.
These updates came just days after Facebook’s Slingshot app became briefly available in selected app stores before it made a swift departure. The app allows users to receive photos or videos from the other party unless they send a response. This reminds us of Facebook’s Poke application in 2012 which was then removed from Facebook last month.
When you can’t buy them, you follow them. That is probably what Mark Zuckerberg is planning.
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