Facebook announced a new “Bots for Messenger” feature for Messenger platform. (Photo : Facebook)
Friends who owe you can now be pressured into paying through a new feature in Facebook's Messenger app in addition to a new polls option as well.
Facebook users can now sneakily help their friends to pay their debts faster through Messenger as the app now suggests the recipient to pay up whenever their friends mention "IOU" or a similar variation of the phrase in their conversation. Of course, it would still need careful social engineering as not to offend any of the user's friends.
The social network giant is calling their new features "Chat Assist" and Facebook is currently testing it for Messenger users in the United States for now, Mashable has learned. Messenger should detect if the recipient of the message owes money to the sender and it will prompt if the user wants to pay the debt through the app or not.
One possible reason for the new pay up feature in Messenger is not to put a gap in their users' friendships with each other but rather to improve the company's machine learning prowess. It would take Facebook's servers a considerable amount of power to detect such IOU phrases and the company could still launch the feature outside the U.S. as well.
Another Chat Assist function in Facebook Messenger is the Polls option which can be found under the miscellaneous "..." option found below the conversation window, TechCrunch reported. Polls is pretty much self-explanatory and is a modified version of Facebook's desktop version.
Users can now ask in a group chat whether their outfit looks good on them or not. They can also ask which food or restaurant they want to eat at during dinner time.
Polls can be helpful in making decisions especially in situations where group efforts are needed. For instance, an academic group project could use some feedback from the other members.
The new Polls feature could also be useful for groups who want to solidify their plans for the weekend and such. Payments could become easier with the new IOU feature as well since Facebook Messenger can take care of the process without all the begging.
