Although there are lots of apps and services you can use for chatting to friends, Facebook Messenger is one of the better options because you can pretty much guarantee most people you know will have a Facebook account.

In addition to chatting with your friends you can now challenge them to play a game of chess, but only if you know the secret phrase to launch it, and the hotkeys used to pay the game.

Continue reading →

There are lots of messaging apps on the market, which means that you can end up needing several if you have friends and contacts on different services. It would be a major breakthrough to have a universal standard for messaging, but is that ever likely to happen?

Telecom and web convergence company tyntec has carried out a survey among smartphone owners in the US and China to uncover trends in consumer messaging app usage and to evaluate the probability of OTT (over-the-top) messaging apps one day becoming a truly universal service that connects the world's population.

Continue reading →

Facebook wants to make Messenger appeal to as many people as possible, so, last month, it announced that it will no longer require new users to have a Facebook account in order to use its increasingly popular messaging service. The feature was initially said to be offered in just a handful of markets, US, Canada, Peru and Venezuela.

Now, the feature is made globally available according to Facebook's David Marcus. Just like in the first markets, all that new users need to sign up for Messenger is their phone number.

Continue reading →

Thanks in no small part to Facebook, Messenger is rapidly growing in popularity. On Google Play, the app reached one billion downloads earlier this month, while on Apple's App Store it leads the free apps chart for iPhones. But while it certainly benefits from being tightly linked to Facebook, the company wants to make it possible to sign up for its messaging service without a Facebook account.

When it announced this change, Facebook did not detail why it is introducing this sign up option. However, it looks like the company wants its messaging service to become more attractive for those who are not willing to join the social network but want to connect with their Facebook friends.

Continue reading →

Being linked to the most-popular social network makes Messenger a very convenient messaging option, giving it a huge advantage in the long run. If you are already friends with someone on Facebook, you can quickly start a conversation with them, share photos, initiate a video chat and more. The way it is designed, you simply cannot ignore its existence, like you would any other messaging service.

Messenger is growing in popularity as new folks sign up for a Facebook account and more and more users have access to smartphones, from which, you guessed it, they want to check what their friends are doing. As a result, Messenger just joined a very exclusive club on Google Play.

Continue reading →

Facebook has announced that its new addition to Messenger, namely video calling, has now rolled out across the globe.

The video calling capability was bolted on to Messenger on both iOS and Android at the end of last month, but obviously rolling it out to every market worldwide takes some time.

Continue reading →