An “Add Contact” feature is being tested that lets users be added to a Messenger contact book without being added as Facebook friends.
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This feature was confirmed to BuzzFeed News to be in testing by Facebook, and is being tested on a select group of people before the social giant rolls thinks to roll it out commercially. If you use Facebook Messenger, keep your eyes peeled for the option to add a contact when talking to somebody new, as shown in the picture below.
Users of the company’s Messenger app on Android can already use Facebook Messenger as a replacement for Android’s default texting, or SMS, app.
Given that Facebook has sort of removed Messenger from its mobile app into its own standalone app, this move makes sense, especially if Facebook is hoping to turn its messaging platform from a mere feature of Facebook into a product that can compete with other messaging apps such as WhatsApp, LINE, Snapchat, WeChat, and so on.
The feature allows people to connect on the popular messaging app, used by more than 1 billion people, without becoming friends on Facebook itself. This means that users will be able to chat with their contacts through Messenger without being friends on Facebook. Of course, you already can send messages to other people even if you’re not Facebook friends, through a message request, but sometimes, people don’t actually see this and it gets buried in the “other inbox”, hence people totally miss it (or maybe deliberately miss it too!).
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It also might not be a coincidence Facebook’s test comes at a time when the amount of personal content being shared on its platform, such as status updates and uploaded photos, is believed to be under pressure.
