Facebook’s messenger, which had 988 million monthly active users as of January, has been due for an update for quite some time. And that time has arrived. Messenger has announced a slew. of new updates, which seem to have uncanny resemblance to work communication platform Slack.
These new features include notifying all participants in a group chat of something important, send messages without everyone in the group getting notified, or pay a friend back, all with Messenger’s new shortcuts.
Two such shortcuts – @everyone and /silent – are already available, and the rest will roll out “in the coming weeks” to help you increase your efficiency in Messenger for both practical and entertainment purposes. These shortcuts, according to Meta, will “help supercharge your messaging efficiency and add a little extra fun to your experience.”
Let us see what the shortcuts are all about. The @everyone shortcut lets users notify all participants in a group chat, which will be useful when you want to remind or notify people of something (like an upcoming event). This is already available on Discord.
The reverse is also true – you may be bombarded with notifications about messages in a group chat when you are busy with something else. That is where /silent comes in. This is already available on Instagram as @silent. If you send a message with /silent in a group, then the others can read the message at their leisure.
Let’s have a look at the other shortcuts that Meta promised will arrive later. The /Pay shortcut is coming soon to iOS and Android for Messenger fans in the US, making it easier for users to send or receive money straight from Messenger chats.
GIFs are as common as sending emojis or memes nowadays, and Meta has not forgotten this. The /gif shortcut is coming soon to iOS and will help you find the GIF you are looking for. All you have to do is type “/gif” and the topic, and you will see the gif options appear.
If you are more of an emoticon user, then the /shrug and /tableflip are just for you. Coming soon to iOS, you are saved from the hassle of typing each emoticon or pasting it from the internet by simply typing “/shrug” or /”tableflip” to include those in the message.
