John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 03.08.2023 04:Mar AM EST

Meta To Merge Messenger Back With Facebook After Nine Years

Facebook will soon let you access your inbox outside of the Messenger app.

Meta's Facebook recently announced that it is currently testing the ability to access Messenger's inbox through Facebook's app after nine years after the day it separated the two into standalone apps.

Facebook previously allowed users on both web and mobile devices to access their inbox and chat with people directly on the app before Meta launched Messenger in 2014, per Engadget.

Facebook-Messenger Integration Details

Facebook head Tom Alison mentioned in a Facebook blog post that the company is testing the ability for people to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app and that it would expand this testing soon.

They also mentioned that the company ultimately wants people to find connecting and sharing content convenient on Facebook through its integration of messaging features, whether in the Messenger app or directly within the official Facebook app.

Meta removed and made the standalone Messenger app from the Facebook app in 2014 to focus its development efforts on making its then-new Messenger app the best mobile messaging experience possible. Meta, then known as Facebook, Inc., also added that it separated the two to make the distinction between them and avoid the confusion of having separate Facebook mobile messaging experiences.

However, this move from Meta doesn't seem to be rooted in the consumers' feedback about merging them back together. According to Android Authority, the post suggests that the merge is part of a push for content discovery and sharing, with the tech giant's head saying that "Another part of delivering the best experience to people using AI is to make it easier for people to share what they discover on Facebook via messaging, when, where and how it suits their needs, without needing to switch to another app."

Though Alison's statement hints that messaging could soon become a part of the official Facebook app again, it is unclear if Meta will do the same to Facebook's mobile browser version as it used to back in the early 2010s.

Facebook Today And Tomorrow

Interestingly, Alison's blog post features Facebook's focus areas for 2023, with them assuring people that Facebook is not dead nor dying since it now has more than 2 billion users.

To become more competitive with TikTok, however, Meta is attempting to shift Facebook away from its roots as an app where people can keep up with friends and family to more of an entertainment and discovery platform.

The tech giant seems to take inspiration from TikTok's playbook - the social media app enables users to share videos they stumble upon with their friends through built-in direct messaging. This feature makes sharing videos with friends easier for TikTok users without switching to another app.

Meta is already seeing some success in implementing a similar measure in Instagram, where users are resharing Reels nearly a billion times daily through DMs.