Facebook Messenger

Facebook has just launched a new free standalone mobile group messaging app for iPhone and Android called Facebook Messenger. It allows users to conduct one-on-one or group conversations, send photos, and privately share their location. Messages are delivered via push notifications to those with the app, and SMS, Facebook Chat, or Facebook Messages to those without it. 

The app heavily incorporates functionality and design from group messaging app Beluga, which Facebook acquired in March, and whose founders headed development. Facebook Messenger should help users coordinate meetups and find each other, increase usage of Facebook’s direct communication channels, and compete with GroupMe and Fast Society. 

This is the first standalone app from the social network, which otherwise aggregates all its functionality into its primary “Facebook for…” native apps. This and leaked information about a standalone photo sharing app indicate that Facebook has recognized the demand for more lightweight, streamlined, specialized mobile apps. Facebook has already started to supplant traditional email providers as a dominant way that people communicate online. 

And now the social networking giant is poised to delve even deeper into users’ messaging activity with a new mobile app with SMS-like functionality. On Tuesday, Facebook is launching a mobile app for iPhone and Android that allows users to send and receive real-time messages. Dubbed Facebook Messenger, it’s the first standalone app to be launched by the company aside from the general purpose apps Facebook has for various mobile devices. 

The development of the Facebook Messenger app has been headed up by the founding team of Beluga, a group text messaging service acquired by Facebook in March. Beluga’s founders Ben Davenport, Lucy Zhang and Jonathan Perlow told me in an interview Tuesday morning that they have been working on Facebook Messenger essentially since they joined the company after the Beluga deal, with help from the entire existing Facebook Messaging team. 

 It was only a few hours ago that we got wind of Facebook’s release of a standalone messaging product called Facebook Messenger for iOS and Android. The app focuses on doing messages and only messages, with the intention of being incredibly convenient instead of robust. If there’s one missing feature, though, it’s video chat integration. Given Facebook’s recent moves with Skype to integrate video chat on the Facebook site, it would only seem to make sense that you could do video messaging and chat in the Facebook apps, too. Apparently, that’s exactly the plan. 

Or at least it’s part of the plan. According to what we’re seeing over at 9to5 Mac, Facebook has tucked away some clues that point toward The integrated messaging platform Facebook launched in November unified Chat, Messages, mobile push notifications, and email, allowing users to have a seamless conversation regardless of what interface the participants were using. Other group messaging apps still worked better though, prompting Facebook to acquire Beluga, which already had a strong Facebook integration. Facebook Messenger goes one step further, allowing users to add contacts from their phone who they aren’t Facebook friends with to a conversation via SMS. 

While other group messaging apps, including Beluga, pay third-party cloud communication service Twilio to convert API calls into SMS, Facebook has built its own in-house SMS syndication system. The app works like this: After downloading the app to your mobile phone, you sign in using your Facebook credentials. The app is essentially an extension of Facebook messages, so all of your texts, chats, emails and message history are all within one place — synced across mobile and web. 

The app can be used to send messages to groups or individuals, and messages can include location information and attachments such as photos. To me, the coolest part of the app is that it can deliver messages through app notifications and SMS texts, so you can communicate with your friends whether they have the Messenger app or not. Facebook Messenger will be available in the US and Canada starting Tuesday, and will roll out in other regions “shortly,” Davenport said.