Facebook is integrating Messenger back into Facebook, but with a twist

In 2014, with much controversy, Facebook spun out Messenger as its own app.  Now 7 years later, the company is reversing that action, in part.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the company revealed that they planned to integrate voice and video calling back into Facebook proper, with the aim of “reduce the need to jump back and forth between Facebook’s main app and Messenger.”

Interestingly however text chatting will remain in the Messenger app, with Facebook saying “Messenger is seen as a connective tissue for people to be together when apart, regardless of which service they’re choosing to use.”

Facebook said it’s “starting to think of Messenger as a service” rather than as an app, with Facebook presumably picking and choosing which bits to implement where. Facebook has already integrated messenger into Instagram DMs, with many thinking the company is weaving their messaging app throughout their services to prevent anti-trust legislators from asking the company to spin it off, much like Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer into Windows.

Current plans are to only test the changes with a small number of users in “several countries, including the US.”

Do our readers wish Facebook used the same messaging backend for all their apps? Let us know below.

via Pocketnow.