Facebook Messenger wants to be like Snapchat
The ephemeral messaging app Snapchat continues to draw attention. And not just millions of users who already use it to capture moments in photo and video, draw on them, and share them on a brief space of time before they disappear, but also to the companies that bet on this communication model as the future So much so that even the social network Facebook is testing a similar function in which to make sure the deletion of messages shortly after being sent
This is the application Facebook Messenger, which wants to get more users by joining the trend of destruction of chat messages To this end, this function is being tested on a small group of users in France, who already have the ability to test how Facebook sees the ephemeral messaging Something notably different from Snapchat, and that tries again to make a place for itself among these somewhat more private and secret messaging applications that the usual ones like WhatsApp, where the messages remain in the history to see them at any time.
These lucky users can access any Facebook Messenger conversation or chat on Android or iOS and click on the new hourglass icon, located at the top of the screen.This enables the self-destruction of sent messages That is, it ensures that they stop being there an hour later after being sent Something that allows new uses and a slightly different experience than usual within this application: from sexting or sending sexually compromised content, up to private conversations of which you want to leave no trace.
The funny thing is that Facebook Messenger does not offer a variable time for messages, as it does in Snapchat In this way, pressing the hourglass icon activates the function, being able to see how the messages and photos sent gradually disappear over time over an hour After that time it is only possible to see the outline of the speech bubbles and photos, without the content being present. Of course, any user within said conversation can cancel the self-destruct function by clicking on the icon again.
This is the first time that Facebook Messenger has included a similar feature in its application. However, it is not the first time that Facebook tries to satisfy the privacy needs of its users. Thus, after the emergence of Snapchat, the social network company launched Poke, trying to to avoid the bleeding of users who preferred messages that end up disappearing over time. The app failed to get traction, and the company has closely followed in the footsteps of Snapchatto avoid competition.
Now it fully introduces a similar function, although always keeping the distances. A step that arrives a little late, since other alternatives such as Telegram, WeChat or LINE already offer barriers to prevent messages from remaining in the chat history.But we will have to wait until the tests are completed in France to see if Facebook Messenger ends up integrating this function or not. Something for which there is no official date yet.
