Facebook announces new business communication tools that rival iMessage

Credit: Facebook

Facebook has announced a number of new Messenger-focused developer updates that could help the service compete with features available on Apple's iMessage platform.

At its F8 Refresh developer conference on Wednesday, Facebook announced new APIs for WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as a Login Connect with Messenger feature, among other updates. Some of the new features compete with existing Apple products.

The WhatsApp Business API, for example, will allow customers to receive information from businesses on the messaging platform. Additionally, businesses will be able to get set up quicker on the service with a significantly reduced onboarding time.

With new List and Reply message options, users will be able to quickly make selections from a menu of different response options.

Alongside the WhatsApp Business API, Facebook also announced that all businesses will now have access to its Messenger API for Instagram. The API is meant to consolidate and automate communications for businesses.

The Instagram API will let companies use the tools they already have in place across Facebook's platforms, allowing for a streamlined and improved experience for customers. Previously, Facebook only had similar systems on WhatsApp and Messenger.

In addition, Facebook is making it easier for customers to opt in to messaging with businesses directly. A new Login Connect with Messenger feature allows users to choose to connect with businesses directly from the Facebook Login page.

In its own testing, Facebook says that about 70% of participants with access to Login Connection opted in to messaging with businesses. Facebook says it'll allow for deeper consumer engagement with businesses, as well as more personalized customer service.

Apple launched its own enterprise-focused system for businesses in iOS 11. The Business Chat service is built on top of iMessage and allows consumers to connect with companies through a familiar interface.

Alongside the new business communication tools, Facebook also announced new augmented reality features for users, including an API that will allow developers to create AR effects for multiple users simultaneously.

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15 Comments

lordjohnwhorfin

said about 2 years ago

Please, Apple, PLEASE make iMessage cross platform so my European friends don’t nag me to join WhatsApp. It’s become the de facto messaging system and Apple is only hurting its own business by isolating its platform.
A friend of mine is a university professor in Europe and told me last year when one of his students noticed he was using an iPhone he came up to him utterly puzzled and asked him why on Earth he would be using an iPhone. All his students and all but 2 of the faculty, including him, are android users. And they all use whatsapp and FB Messenger.
Why allow Facebook to monopolize this market?

bobolicious

said about 2 years ago

I'm still struggling to understand the lack of S/MIME email 'for the rest of us' across the board... ???

FileMakerFeller

said about 2 years ago

bobolicious said:

I'm still struggling to understand the lack of S/MIME email 'for the rest of us' across the board... ???

Sadly, I think email's days are numbered. It's a widely-available standardised system, which is a big benefit, but it was designed with the assumption that any abuse of the system would be limited and thus easily controlled. It's a security nightmare that is largely unrecognised as such by users, and there are more secure systems available that preserve privacy and secrecy at a minimal cost to user experience and monetary resources. The really big cost of these systems is that they're proprietary and non-interoperable, but so far people have been willing to put up with that given that every player in the space has a huge number of users so for any given person in your s

Marvin

said about 2 years ago

lordjohnwhorfin said:

Please, Apple, PLEASE make iMessage cross platform so my European friends don’t nag me to join WhatsApp. It’s become the de facto messaging system and Apple is only hurting its own business by isolating its platform.
A friend of mine is a university professor in Europe and told me last year when one of his students noticed he was using an iPhone he came up to him utterly puzzled and asked him why on Earth he would be using an iPhone. All his students and all but 2 of the faculty, including him, are android users. And they all use whatsapp and FB Messenger.
Why allow Facebook to monopolize this market?

Apple can make it cross-platform with an API, they wouldn't need to make a client for Android. With a client, they'd just have to process tens of billions of messages for Android users to each other at great expense when they'd have no intention of buying any Apple products. Everybody knows how Facebook monetizes people, that's not the business Apple is in.

These anecdotes of people using Android are meaningless. Apple's not exactly short on users, they sell over 200 million iPhones every year, they have an active userbase of over 1 billion people (1/7th of the planet and 1/3 of the developed planet) and they process billions of iMessages every day for the customers who pay them.

If people think Messages is so much better than what they have, they can buy an iPhone any time they want. WhatsApp exists on iPhone too and people can send between Messages and whatever junk Android users have. If there's an isolated messaging platform, it's WhatsApp because it can only send to WhatsApp, Messages can send to any app with SMS.

Android users can use Google Messages instead of WhatsApp:

https://messages.google.com

I don't get why there's a demand for people to use the same messaging client. Email is universal messaging, has all the features and it gets sent everywhere to dozens of different clients - Outlook, Apple Mail, GMail, Thunderbird. Messaging is just faster email with the messages on one page. All that's needed is to let Messages talk to WhatsApp and vice versa. It's all over the data connection, one of them just needs an API. Apple can then send things like memoji to WhatsApp users and that would be much more compelling for switching platform because they'd see what they were missing out on. If they get all the features on Android, they have no reason to switch.