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Facebook is testing the addition of voice and video calls to the main Facebook application, Bloomberg reports. The features are currently part of the standalone Messenger app, which Facebook originally built from its big blue main app in 2011 and officially phased out in 2014.
Voice and video calls are two of the many Messenger features that Facebook has introduced in its other products like Portal video cameras and Oculus virtual reality headsets. The company has not indicated whether it plans to bring other parts of Messenger back into the fold, but Messenger’s director of product management said Bloomberg that “you will start to see a little more over time.”
Facebook confirmed The edge that it is testing voice and video calls in “several countries, including the United States.” The company hasn’t shared how many users will see the features or what it means for the standalone Messenger app in the future, other than “for a full messaging, audio and video calling experience, the people should continue to use Messenger ”.
Adding voice and video calls to the Facebook app makes as much sense as launching Messenger in the first place. Yes, that means there’s one less app to switch between while you’re doing other things on your computer or phone, but it also means you’ll have to interact with (or at least see) Facebook along the way – something that I’m not sure everyone is interested in doing.
There is also the risk that integrating Messenger with Facebook will generate the same kind of criticism as unifying Messenger and Instagram direct messages. It seems like this makes a giant business like Facebook even harder to take down – which may be the point.
This is also not the first suggestion that Facebook was considering bringing Messenger back into Facebook. In 2019, the company tested the return of text chats to the main app with a dedicated inbox and splashed them “from Facebook” on Oculus, Instagram and WhatsApp.
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