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M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

wired.com

61–70 of 175 posts

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old one is a mobius strip. The new one is more angular and 1 color. https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/visual-studio-homepage-vs...

Even the old one isn't a proper mobius strip. In the transparent version[1] you can see that the strip twists behind the crossing making it a normal loop. [1]: http://www.multidmedia.com/common/img/Features/SDK.png

lame. All serious, no fun allowed.

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#62
post #32

This seems like a move into the Chinese-style mega-app where you can do everything from one app - buy shoes, talk to your friends, figure out when the train departs. Facebook already has two top-50 apps, and creating new, unproven apps and promoting them to that point is expensive. So, to increase influence they are putting more into the existing apps.

Who knows, they might move toward a mega-app. Consider for a moment, though, that currently we're talking about Facebook Messenger, which is a huge, and fairly recent example of the exact opposite thing happening (it was part of Facebook, but pulled out into a separate app.)

The odd thing about the example of Messenger is that as two separate apps they seem highly coupled. AFAIK you need to sign in with a valid Facebook account to use Messenger, so you're already very likely to have the normal app at that point as I can't imagine anyone who would trust FB for messaging but not everything else. On the flip side, barring a few possible holdouts of people worried about app permissions, I don't know anyone who actively have FB accounts but don't use their messaging service.

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#63
post #32

This seems like a move into the Chinese-style mega-app where you can do everything from one app - buy shoes, talk to your friends, figure out when the train departs. Facebook already has two top-50 apps, and creating new, unproven apps and promoting them to that point is expensive. So, to increase influence they are putting more into the existing apps.

Maybe after seeing their smart phone flopped, they're going with an inside-out approach.

Good point. Unsure why you've been downvoted for this.

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows, they might move toward a mega-app. Consider for a moment, though, that currently we're talking about Facebook Messenger, which is a huge, and fairly recent example of the exact opposite thing happening (it was part of Facebook, but pulled out into a separate app.)

The odd thing about the example of Messenger is that as two separate apps they seem highly coupled. AFAIK you need to sign in with a valid Facebook account to use Messenger, so you're already very likely to have the normal app at that point as I can't imagine anyone who would trust FB for messaging but not everything else. On the flip side, barring a few possible holdouts of people worried about app permissions, I do…

You actually don't need to have a Facebook account anymore to use Messenger. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/sign-up-for-messenger-wi...

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows, they might move toward a mega-app. Consider for a moment, though, that currently we're talking about Facebook Messenger, which is a huge, and fairly recent example of the exact opposite thing happening (it was part of Facebook, but pulled out into a separate app.)

The odd thing about the example of Messenger is that as two separate apps they seem highly coupled. AFAIK you need to sign in with a valid Facebook account to use Messenger, so you're already very likely to have the normal app at that point as I can't imagine anyone who would trust FB for messaging but not everything else. On the flip side, barring a few possible holdouts of people worried about app permissions, I do…

Actually no - FB messenger now works purely on just phone numbers as well, without a FB account being required. This is a shift they've made to compete with the other messaging apps out there.

That said, they prefer and guide you at every point to use an FB account to sign up vs making it easier for you to keep the two de-coupled.

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows, they might move toward a mega-app. Consider for a moment, though, that currently we're talking about Facebook Messenger, which is a huge, and fairly recent example of the exact opposite thing happening (it was part of Facebook, but pulled out into a separate app.)

The odd thing about the example of Messenger is that as two separate apps they seem highly coupled. AFAIK you need to sign in with a valid Facebook account to use Messenger, so you're already very likely to have the normal app at that point as I can't imagine anyone who would trust FB for messaging but not everything else. On the flip side, barring a few possible holdouts of people worried about app permissions, I do…

[deleted]

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows, they might move toward a mega-app. Consider for a moment, though, that currently we're talking about Facebook Messenger, which is a huge, and fairly recent example of the exact opposite thing happening (it was part of Facebook, but pulled out into a separate app.)

The odd thing about the example of Messenger is that as two separate apps they seem highly coupled. AFAIK you need to sign in with a valid Facebook account to use Messenger, so you're already very likely to have the normal app at that point as I can't imagine anyone who would trust FB for messaging but not everything else. On the flip side, barring a few possible holdouts of people worried about app permissions, I do…

I "actively" have a FB account by most measures, and I don't use Facebook Messenger. I only access their mobile site through Tinfoil for Facebook, and the messaging works just fine in that.

Re: M, a personal digital assistant inside Facebook Messenger

#70

Is it just me or does this article read as a thinly veiled sales pitch to anyone else?

My guess is that since people don't pay for subscriptions and rarely click on ads, Wired and some other publications make most of their money now from paid promotional 'journalism'. I would rather have that than nothing. Everything costs money.
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