The month of August 2021 marks 10 years of Facebook Messenger. With more than a billion people around the world using the service to communicate, connect, and associate in this time of a raging pandemic, the app is celebrating the milestone with four new features for users to enjoy.
The company says this is part of “an epic birthday bundle of 10 product features — many of which are starting to roll out today — that will help you create more memories with your friends and family.”
New Facebook Messenger Poll Games
Facebook is revising Polls, which they say is one of Messenger’s most-loved features, with the launch of Poll Games! Now, you can now play “Most likely to” in polls to help you discover what your friends think about topics. To play a poll game in your group chat, tap “Polls” and select the “Most Likely To” tab to pick a question and select the names of chat participants to be included as potential answers.
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Birthday Gifting using Facebook Pay
For Messenger fans in the US, Facebook is introducing a new way to receive cash gifts directly through Messenger. When a friend sends you a cash gift for your birthday, you will be notified on Messenger and on Facebook with their gift message wrapped and accompanied by virtual balloons.
Once you confirm your Facebook Pay details, the cash gift will be instantly deposited into your bank account. To send a birthday cash gift, go to the Facebook mobile app and tap the button that appears alongside your friend’s birthday posts in your Facebook News Feed or their profile.
Birthday Expression Tools
Do you know those birthdays where you want to have or try out a new chat theme? Facebook will now let you fill the sky with purple and blue balloons with our Birthday Balloon 360 background and blow out birthday candles with our Birthday AR effect.
You can also send a catchy birthday song Soundmoji and use a Message Effect to add a burst of confetti to your celebratory message or even wrap it up with a bow.
Soundmojis, new to the platform, let users send short sound clips within a chat on the social media app. They include sound clips for emojis such as clapping, crickets, drum roll, and evil laughter. It will also allow users to include audio clips from artists, TV shows, movies, and Netflix. This will boost the users that already send over 2.4 billion messages with emojis on Messenger daily. Find out more about them in the link below.
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A New Way to Share Facebook Contacts
When it comes to celebrations, the more people the merrier! The social media app is also introducing a new way for you to easily share Facebook contacts with friends through Messenger. Simply select the contact you want to share, access the chat settings, and tap “Share Contact” under the “More Actions” section.
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Facebook also took the occasion to give a preview of its coming ‘Word Effects’ option, “an exciting new way to pair words with the emojis that have meaning to you and your friends”. Basically, it will throw up an emoji to be paired with a certain word or term.
Months back, the company also teamed up with Spotify to create means for users to listen to songs via the streaming service through the messaging app. Users can stream from Spotify through the social media app in a new way of listening to music or podcasts directly within the Facebook app, known as Project Boombox.
This new partnership that lets users stream through the two platforms is available on iOS and Android. You can share audio content and you can press and listen to play on even during scrolling.