Facebook crowed that an Android version of its Messenger app
has been downloaded more than a billion times from the Google Play store.
“Happy to make it to the very exclusive Android 1 billion+ downloads club,” the
head of the Messenger team David Marcus said in an online post.
Other than Facebook, only Google boasts apps with more than
a billion Google Play downloads onto Android-powered mobile devices, according
to technology news website TechCrunch.
A chat forum on Messenger’s page at Google Play was rich
with accolades but peppered with comment that the high download count was
driven by Facebook spinning the widely used service out of the social network,
compelling people to get the app. Facebook last year broke off Messenger from
the main Facebook application for mobile users, creating a separate platform
that claims more than 600 million users.
Facebook in April began rolling out video calling on its
Messenger mobile application, enabling face-to-face conversations among users
of the app around the world.
With the new feature, users can add video to calls to
another person with the same application. Similar services are offered by
Microsoft’s Skype, Google Hangouts and Apple’s FaceTime.
Free calling has been available for two years to users of
Messenger, although people may be required to pay for data used during the
connections.
The world’s biggest social network also opened up Messenger
to outside developers as part of its strategy to create a “family” of apps that
also includes Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook has offered few hints on how it
will monetize Messenger, but recently unveiled a system of peer-to-peer
payments which could be adapted as an e-commerce platform.
Messenger also lets users communicate with online merchants,
essentially turning formerly impersonal Internet shopping into ongoing text
message conversations.
AFP
Source From:- http://tech.firstpost.com/
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