Facebook Updates

01st July 2016

Facebook Messenger Gets an Update…

The bot app was changed a lot in the last few months, attracting brands and businesses with more than 11,000 bots being launched. Not to mention the 23,000 developers showing interested in the engine.

As a result of the ongoing feedback from developers, Facebook has now launched a new blog for Messenger Platform Developers. Here are some of the features now being offered:

Ratings: Developers are not given star ratings depending on how their app performed. These can only been seen by the developers through email of the dashboard.

Quick replies: To help with the automation of conversations, there are now 10 buttons to align with messages.

Persistent menu: There are now 5 actions for bot navigation instead of remembering text commands.

Account linking: The option to connect customer accounts with messenger accounts.

Content: Audio, video, images and files are now all supported within the app.

Mute control: Users are able to mute bots just like they are normal conversations.

17th June 2016

Facebook Messenger gets some new features!

As expected, Facebook have continued to focus on the development of messenger, the app has had a multitude of new features recently. In this update facebook have launched the ability to send SMS messages over messenger, though only on android. Could we see Facebook moving into phone territory in the future?

The first thing you’re likely to notice with the new messenger is the design. The design has been streamlined which makes it easier to navigate between the features with the new icons at the top of the page. The new design also makes it easier to access the home screen and there have been improvements to the events and favourite contact areas making it easier to see upcoming events.

20th April 2016

You can now make group calls on Messenger.

Some good news for anyone who uses the voice call feature for Facebook Messenger! Facebook has announced that now you can create group voice calls on messenger with up to 50 people at a time. We know Facebook has big plans for messenger; could this just be the tip of the iceberg?

13th April 2016

Facebook F8 Conference Summary

Facebook’s F8 conference is over, and now we have a chance to go over what happened.
Facebook releases a 10-year road map showing what the company aims to be in 10 years. They split it into three parts; 3, 5 and 10 years. In 3 years they hope to improve standard Facebook. Within 5 years they hope to Strengthen and develop Instagram, messenger, WhatsApp and their other products. In 10 years they hope to have developed on VR, AI and connectivity.

Messenger was a focus point for Facebook at F8 as they released the Messenger Platform which allows everyone to create bots for the app.

Facebook have also announced a few new tools such as the ‘account kit’ which will allow non-Facebook users to have access to Facebook apps. They have also announced improved analytics for their apps.

Facebook said that the react framework will now be available on Windows and Samsung devices, which will allow them to develop apps for a range of different devices.

7 March 2016

Facebook Messenger Gets Android Makeover

Facebook has just rolled out a major design update for the android messenger app. Although the update is purely aesthetic, it’s made significant changes to the overall design. The new update includes a ‘floating’ button for starting conversations which balances space far better than the bar used previously. The top bar has been changed from white to blue, although not Facebook-brand blue.

This update is also significant because it’s the only time messenger has differentiated itself on a different platform. One of the main negative points about this update would be how similar it looks to the Google messenger.

Facebook addressed the long wait for the redesign by saying “Any major redesign of an essential app used by hundreds of millions of people around the world is painstakingly hard, and that’s why we took every precaution to ensure you’d truly enjoy this evolution.” Essentially just saying that they didn’t want to mess it up.

25 February 2016

Interactive ‘Canvas’ Ads

Facebook has announced the official start of its full-screen advertising tool for iOS and Android mobile devices. The ‘Canvas’ ads appear to be the next step from Facebook’s previous ‘Carousel’ ads which allowed the user to swipe through different images and services provided by the advertiser, the Canvas ads allow much higher levels of interaction compared to ads we’ve seen in the past. The way in which the Canvas ads leap forward from the Carousel is that the canvas ads can take up the entire screen to become a navigable and interactive page.

Facebook said it developed Canvas to present all advertisers with a “fully customisable digital space on which to build multimedia stories” which would allow advertisers to use text, photos, video and call-to-action buttons in a dynamic environment for users. A major factor in the Canvas ads is that Facebook have made it easy for businesses to make, Canvas ads are built via a web interface with no coding or advanced design skills necessary.

Canvas ads already seem to be captivating the audience with Facebook saying that users spend an average of 31 seconds per ad, and over 70 seconds for the best ones, 53% of users view more than half the canvas. Facebook said the idea was to “raise the bar for what people and advertisers should see on their mobile phones” and with these figures they appear to have been successful.