Numbers of users in multiple markets including TechCrunch staff in the U.S and Europe spotted the new change on Facebook - of its integration of its private chat app Messenger to the desktop version. Although the new change has not been formally announce by the giant tech itself, but could be seen as more than a small scale 'test'.
Messenger was introduced by Facebook just under two years ago and available exclusively on smartphones. According to TechCrunch, some users are demanding the old Inbox be returned, just like the previous upgrades introduced by Facebook at the early stage.
One could notice if their Facebook interface has been upgraded by simply looking at the new icon on the user interface when accessed from the desktop - the previous inbox icon has been replaced with the Messenger icon at the top of the screen. If clicked, users will be taken to the revamped inbox which looks like what they will see if they had visited Messenger.com directly.
The left side of the screen reads "Messenger" above the list of the recent friends the users had chatted with, whereas the centre of the three paned interface will show the content of the currently selected chat session. The right-hand side of the screen introduces something new, too, as it displays the name of your friend in the selected chat, when they were recently active, and provides access to other Messenger features.
The new features include the function to search the conversation, change the chat's color, emoji, edit nicknames and mute notifications. A link to the person's Facebook profile is also available for easy access, and also at the bottom there will be panel for shared photos with friends in Messenger.
The social platform has long approached Messenger with a different technique and strategy on mobile counterpart. On smartphones, it pushed users away to the dedicated mobile app from the web version of Messenger.
The web version of Messenger was designed as a complementary counterpart to Facebook's Messenger, and offered a way to keep up with your friends without being distracted by its News Feed and other notifications. The change to Facebook.com's messaging experience comes on the same day that Facebook's David Marcus made a series of announcements about what we can expect from Messenger over the course of 2017.
The service, which now has over a billion users, has seen a number of updates in recent months, the post noted, including the addition of visual and expressive features to rival Snapchat, like masks, effects and stickers, as well as the addition of Group Video Chat, Games, a platform for businesses, and more.
