Facebook begins to merge the messaging systems of Instagram and Facebook Messenger . Users who have received the notification will be able to chat without having to switch from one application to another. A first step towards the total integration of your chats that will also include WhatsApp.
Chat with your Facebook friends from Instagram
Some time ago Facebook announced its intention to unify the messaging systems of its applications. In this way, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger users could talk to each other without having to switch from one application to another.
Well, we could say that a first phase has already begun. Some users are beginning to receive an advertisement on Instagram where they are told that if they update they will be able to communicate with Facebook Messenger users without having to change applications.
Users who update the messaging system will initially see how its interface changes at the design level. In addition to those changes that affect elements such as the icon of the paper plane that happens to be similar to that of Facebook Messenger, you will also see that it has the ability to react with any emoji, use the option to slide your finger to respond to messages or good to be able to chat with those users who have and use Facebook.
If you do not accept all these changes, they will not be visible, but it seems that Facebook Messenger users will be able to continue sending a request to those on Instagram to chat. This notification would include a link with information related to Facebook’s privacy policy and the options for this change to apply or not.
What should be noted is that although you can chat from Facebook Messenger with your Instagram friends , from Instagram you cannot chat with the contacts you have on Facebook Messenger. All this is supposed to come later, as all that integration that seeks to go beyond these two apps progresses.
The idea of Facebook is that both WhatsApp and Instagram and Facebook Messenger share a user base and function for practical purposes as a single messaging system.
Unify the chats, good or bad idea?
Unify the chats of these three applications is something we learned about a year ago. From that moment until now there hadn’t been much news. Something understandable, because it is not an easy task to achieve something like this .
That is why it has started with Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Doing it with these two apps is easier because Instagram is oriented to sharing photos and not so much chatting with others. According to all progress and correct possible problems, they will make the leap to WhatsApp, where they will surely find more problems.
And it is that basically you have to combine different architectures to achieve something like this. But the question that many will ask is whether this is really a good or bad idea, if there will be more risks to user privacy, etc.
These are complex questions. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is true that now a failure in one of the apps could compromise the entire system if you are not careful. However, as made clear when it was first discussed, these interactions would only be for private posts protected with external-to-end encryption so that no one can see them, not the government or Facebook itself.
What do you think, do you like the idea of interoperability or not?