Facebook brings Messenger back in the app and focuses more on ‘recommended’ posts

Meta is going to bring Facebook Messenger back into the Facebook app. The message service is given a place at the top right of the screen. In addition, the feed will change. It gets more posts, especially Stories and short videos, that the algorithm thinks users will find interesting.

Facebook moving messages

The reason for putting Facebook Messenger back into Facebook is that more and more people are sharing content through chat messages, reports The Verge based on an internal memo by and interviews with Tom Alison. Alison has been leading the development of the Facebook app since last year. Meta split Messenger from the Facebook apps for Android and iOS eight years ago.

The feed gets more recommended Stories and Reels, short videos like on TikTok. This should make it more interesting for users and increase the use of the feed. Those Stories and Reels come from accounts that users don’t follow, but the algorithm thinks users will enjoy the content. That too is taken from TikTok, which has been working since the beginning with an algorithmic feed of accounts that people don’t necessarily follow. Based on how long users watch, the software tries to estimate whether users liked a video and would like to see more of the same genre or account. Meta calls it “The Discovery Engine.”

Alison confirms the plans from the internal memo to The Verge. It is still unknown when Meta will implement the changes. The company says nothing about that. The same trend can be seen on Instagram, with the company increasingly recommending short videos and posts from accounts that users do not follow.