Branching out
Facebook has continued its investment in instant messaging, following the refresh of its messaging offering last November, and the addition of video calling a month ago. The new launch is a stand-alone mobile app designed for instant messaging, which seems to be the result of its acquisition of Beluga back in March.
It's called Messenger, originally enough, and is an intriguing departure for Facebook as it's both a native, as opposed to web-based, app, and is separate from the main Facebook app. It has been launched for both iOS and Android, but there was no sign of it on the Android Market at time of writing, so maybe it's US-only for now.
The app is billed as an extension of the core Messages functionality so, presumably, it will sync. Facebook spoke about how complicated messaging from phones is right now, highlighting the choice between texting and emailing as chief among the ordeals we have to endure, and thus seems to be aiming to replace both. The other clear target for this product is the current market-leading mobile IM product - BlackBerry Messenger.
It looks like the app can find your chosen contact, regardless of whether they're on Facebook, which has led TechCrunch to muse that Messenger is also a threat to Apple's new iMessage product.
There's also a group messaging facility, geo-tagging and the ability to attach photos. Furthermore 9TO5Mac spotted the potential for video messaging too. While Facebook has an undeniably strong and ascendant brand, the launch of a stand-alone app puts it in direct competition with the many other IM services out there, and it's by no means certain that every Facebook user will chose this app for their mobile messaging needs.
