There are over 900 million people using Messenger every month, so it’s no surprise that Facebook are focusing on how to best utilise the service.
“Up until now, a lot of how message organisation and inboxes work has been broken,” says Facebook. “So, we’ve been thinking about how we can make it simpler and easier to find what you want to start a conversation.”
Here’s what Facebook has planned and what changes have already been made.
There’s a new Home tab for your messages where you can see your recent messages, who is active on Messenger, new short cuts to the people you message with most, and the birthdays of those you interact with the most, since thanks to Facebook we’ve completely stopped memorising birthdays now.
Why the changes? “Messenger includes a lot of very important and relevant information, and we want to do more to improve the organisation,” Facebook says. “For many people, they come to Messenger to start a conversation. These new features will help people do just that.”
The changes are available on iOS and Android (but not in browser) globally and are rolling out over the next few days.
You’ll still be able to see your most recent conversations and unread messages. But you’ll now also be able to see Favorites, Active Now, and birthdays. You can’t edit the order the sections show up as yet.
Facebook assures that no businesses or bots will show up in the favourites tab. The Messenger bot platform is still in beta, and bots don’t currently have a dedicated section with this new design.
“Over time, you could imagine a lot of bot discovery or even a bot section,” Facebook says, “and we’re excited to explore that based on people’s feedback.”