Roger Fingas
Facebook on Monday announced that one of the key poles of its bot strategy, chat-based purchases, will soon take effect for users of its Messenger app.
Developers can now apply to participate in a closed beta, Messenger head David Marcus said at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016. Once businesses have bots enabled, though, they should be able to sell goods and services through Messenger, as long as shoppers already have credit card information saved with Facebook.
It's not clear which businesses will be the first to launch sales bots, but during an April press event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated delivery orders through 1-800-Flowers.
Depending on how well it's implemented, the technology could divert some business away from Apple Pay. The latter can already be used in apps and at retail, and iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will enable it on the Web, a more direct area of competition.
iOS 10 is due to go live on Tuesday, with Sierra coming a week later.
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
7 Comments
Smart move, but wow, this is getting messy for end users.
Does Apple not get a percentage?
Everything should be done securely through Apple Pay nowadays.
They must be getting scared about their Ad revenue. This gives them pure marketing data at no cost. Lovely-jubbly.
I would not use Facebook even if you paid me $100/year. IMHO Zuck seems hell bent on getting more data on each and everyone of us than Google and the NSA combined.
I can say now that I will never pay for anything this way ever!!!
Give Facebook my credit card details??? Bwahaha. Not in this lifetime.