Los Angeles — World’s most popular social media outfit Facebook today announced the release of its Facebook Messenger version 1.5. The social network’s standalone mobile application for member-to-member messaging, texts, and picture or location exchanges, has been upgraded with new features.
The standalone mobile messaging application, already available on iPhone and Android is a quick way to message your friends without wading through the entire Facebook app, has also arrived on BlackBerry. In short, Facebook now targets the top three smartphone platforms: Android, iPhone (iOS), and BlackBerry.
This latest version adds several new features and languages to the existing iOS and Android versions, such as performance improvements as well as support for the BlackBerry platform.
Now available in App World via Facebook’s About page, the BlackBerry version of the push notification and SMS app could become an arch rival to RIM’s native BlackBerry Messenger service.
Besides, playing through the features, FB Messenger offers free messaging as well as dispatching messages as sms texts within the app. So you do not have to leave the app to send a Message to a person who may not be using the app. That way, you still can group message everyone even if that have a dumb/feature phone.
Also, with the feature additions Messenger now more closely calculates the web version of Facebook Chat, and surpasses the built-in Chat functionality of the main Facebook mobile apps. Facebook Messenger can now better accomplish its purpose of allowing low-friction, cross-platform instant messaging.
Moreover, in terms of new capabilities, the new version enables you see who is online and who is on mobile, shows you when the other person is typing, and offers a faster way to compose new messages to the people you message most. Facebook has also added support for 22 new languages for Android, 12 new languages for iPhone, and iOS 5 support for the iPhone.
Interestingly, users can also add an image and their location to messages, as well as turn off alerts for one hour or for the whole day (excellent for getting a break from receiving constant alerts from a group chat that you have checked out of a long time ago). Add the fact that BB users now can participate, and you have got three of the four major platforms that can chat for free, no ads, no extra fluff, using an app from a big name like Facebook.
Apart from many new features, 22 new languages have been added to the Android versions, and 12 more have been bundled for iPhone. In September, Facebook also made the app available in the UK and Ireland.
Nevertheless, today’s update solves many of the problems found in earlier version. When users go to start a conversation or add friends to an existing thread, they will first see a list of their closest friends and their online statuses–whether online on the web, on their mobile device, or offline. Below this, users see an alphabetical list of all their online friends, and can also search for offline friends. This means that if users just want to Chat but not with anyone in particular, they will see options of readily available friends, which could increase usage of the app.
However, some other multi-platform messaging apps may provide more features, but more than likely, you will get ads, unless you upgrade for a fee. The Facebook messenger application is based around group messaging app Beluga, a startup Facebook acquired earlier this year, proved to be an early hit with iPhone users. With this update, the social network is demonstrating an ongoing commitment to real-time communication across multiple platforms, and its app now better rivals Apple’s and BlackBerry’s single platform messaging systems.
You can grab it now for Android on Google’s Android Market, for the iPhone on Apple’s App Store, and for BlackBerry on RIM’s BlackBerry App World.
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