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Read highlights from Tuesday’s Twitter talk:

Facebook’s Messenger Chief Outlines What’s Coming Next for the Platform

2016 was a year of significant switch for Facebook Messenger. They introduced their fresh Messenger Bots platform back in February, released a re-vamped layout for the app in June, brought in Snapchat-like instruments and features and games to add more functionality and spinned out multi-participant movie talk to close out the year. And those are just the major updates – there were several other contraptions and features announced, all of which add to the growing functionality of the app.

Messenger also crossed the major milestone of one billion monthly active users in 2016, while messaging, as a practice, continued to grow and become a more significant part of people’s interactive process. The numbers underline why Facebook’s so focused on evolving the platform’s contraptions – the chance is massive.

And if Facebook has their way, Messenger will become a much more significant consideration in two thousand seventeen and beyond.

So what’s coming next for Messenger? This week, Facebook’s Vice President of Messaging Products David Marcus outlined some of the key areas of concentrate for the app, which provide some interesting insight into where’s they’re headed.

Here were Marcus’ key points of emphasis.

1. Virtual Living Room

It seems a slightly odd analogy, but Marcus noted that Messenger’s ambition is to become ‘your virtual living room’.

“…your living room is where you string up out with your family or friends, you talk, you look at photos and movies, you make plans, you shop, you share practices, you comment on live events, you play games, and sometimes you just goof around. Expect us to do more to enable you to recreate these types of interactions with truly anyone in the world at any given point in time. ”

Marcus’ wording here is interesting, noting both group discussion and live events. This would suggest that Messenger will be looking to put more emphasis on group interaction, like they have with group movie talks, and lighter ways to engage with others while watching major events and such. Maybe a way to better integrate group talks around particular topics?

Group movie discussion has proven popular with another live-streaming app, Houseparty, so it makes sense that Messenger might look to use that impetus to facilitate more in-app engagement.

The mention of photos and movies points to fresh devices to enable lighter sharing of your content, while shopping, of course, is tied into Messenger’s broader eCommerce ambitions – and you can certainly expect to see the Messenger Business Platform proceed to evolve on this front.

It’s interesting to consider the treatment, what the Messenger team intends for the app to become. What other applications could the platform introduce to become a “virtual living room”?

Two. Visual Concentrate

Marcus makes mention of the thicker concentrate on visuals in Messenger, with a specific note on the addition of the fresh Messenger camera.

“We built a quick, feature-rich camera as a way for you to share visually everyday – whether it’s a movie clip or quick selfie or a stupid moment. We took the fresh camera a step further by adding whimsical art, fresh stickers and custom-built frames for you to add as well as 3D masks.”

As we’ve noted previously, Facebook’s on a mission to eliminate Snapchat as a threat, and as such, they’ve been introducing more and more Snapchat-like implements in their products. These are interesting, and no doubt such contraptions have slowed Snapchat’s momentum somewhat, but where Facebook will truly win out is when they can introduce better, more engaging implements and features than those that are available in Snapchat. That’s when users will begin switching across – if/when Facebook can make their platform instruments the thing people want to showcase off to their friends.

Given Marcus’ note on this front, you can expect to see more and better implements like this in Messenger moving forward.

Three. Messenger Discovery

Marcus also notes that they’re working to improve discovery in Messenger:

“…now you don’t need to know someone’s phone number to talk with a friend or even a business (instead of calling them. ).”

This is a key value proposition for Messenger, that it facilitates ordinary, direct connection with brands. For the brands themselves, that type of connection can be difficult to scale – which is why Messenger Bots are a logical progression – but for consumers, that instant capability connect, within the app they already use every day and are familiar with, could be a much thicker draw. If Messenger can get that discovery element right.

“We think a lot about how we can make this global Messenger directory plain and effortless to use. On this front, expect us to build more capabilities that will enable you to find people and businesses more lightly.”

Improved search and discovery on Messenger could be a big shift – it’s worth businesses paying attention to this element.

Four. Working with Developers

And Marcus’ final point of emphasis is on the developer community, and how Messenger will proceed to work with developers to help them build better practices within the app.

“By the end of two thousand seventeen we’ll see an increase in hybrid UI and conversational practices and lighter ways to detect these practices on Messenger, with more social ways to share. Also, we’ll see enlargened automation thanks to more progress on the AI front.”

This, again, points to the ongoing development of their bots platform, which, as noted, is likely a necessary element for brands looking to facilitate more direct connection via message.

Where Messenger will likely put fatter concentrate on this element in two thousand seventeen is on helping smaller businesses create their own bots, with lighter, simpler implements and features that can make it a more accessible option.

The note on social sharing, too, points to improved bot discovery, which has proven to be a challenge thus far. For example, there are now more than 34,000 bots active on the Messenger platform – how many can you name?

Improving the awareness of both the existence and benefits of bots will play a big role in building out Messenger’s expanded eCommerce ambitions.

As noted, two thousand sixteen was a big year for Messenger, and the insights here provide some key notes on where the platform is headed. And with more than a billion users, it’s hard to disregard the potential of Messenger as a business platform. It hasn’t taken off as such yet, but the app’s active user count has continued to grow along with the introduction of newer instruments and options, which shows that users are open to expanding their usage of the app.

It’s worth taking note of what’s coming next.

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