Facebook Inc has revealed its interest in bringing voice and video calling to its main app to fine-tune its message features after rolling off Messenger as a different app in 2014.
Bloomberg reported that some users, including those in the U.S were able to place voice or video calls from Facebook app on Monday.
The director of product management at Messenger, Connor Hayes, said the new feature is just a test, but it’s meant to reduce the need to jump back and forth between Facebook’s main app and its Messenger service.
According to Hayes, Facebook also started testing a limited version of Messenger’s inbox in the core Facebook app last fall. Adding that Messenger was once built into Facebook’s app, but the company spun it out seven years ago forcing users to download a separate app to send private messages from a mobile phone.
He said on Monday test is the latest in what has been low but the consistent effort done internally is to integrate all of Facebook’s apps and services. Facebook is starting to think of Messenger as a service rather than just a stand-alone app, Hayes added.
Also, Hayes said people can use the technology alongside other things. People relying on Messenger to video chat while watching videos or playing games on Facebook. According to him voice and video calls that use Messenger technology are available on other Facebook platforms, including Instagram, Oculus, and Portal devices.
Hayes further said “You’re going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time,” while describing Messenger as the “connective tissue for people to be together when apart, regardless of which service they’re choosing to use.”
Facebook first enabled messaging between its Instagram app and Messenger last September, and there are plans to bring the capability to its WhatsApp messaging service as well.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has argued that integrating the company’s messaging services is a benefit to users, letting them reach more people and reducing the need to download or jump between separate apps.
Critics has also argue that Facebook is intertwining its services in a way that could make it impossible to break the company up. Federal regulators filed an antitrust lawsuit last week to try and force Facebook to spin off its Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions.
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