Facebook Messenger's new feature uses facial recognition to make photograph sharing with friends faster and easier. The instant messaging (IM) service's Photo Magic automatically identifies people's faces in their camera roll after snapping a picture, and suggests sharing the image with them.
This week some Messenger users will be able to opt-in for the new feature. People who enable tag suggestions can still appear in the suggestions of friends who enabled the feature.
Meanwhile, Facebook Messenger users who enable Photo Magic will see a push notification after shooting a pic. It suggests that they send the image to friends in the photo via Messenger.
The notification shows up on Android devices in a few seconds. It takes a couple of minutes on the IOS platform.
The main Facebook app's settings will apply to Photo Magic. Furthermore, the new feature can only detect faces of Facebook friends.
The new Messenger feature is similar to Facebook Moments. Photo Magic will be beta tested with Android and iOS users starting this week in Australia, and will have a wider roll-out if it receives positive feedback, according to Mashable.
Photo sharing through Messenger is a hot trend. During the past month around 9.5 billion photos were sent via the IM service, according to Tech Crunch.
Peter Martinazzi is Facebook's Director of Product Management. He told Tech Crunch that photo sharing is growing faster than quickly-expanding Messenger, which is key as it allows the IM service to go head-to-head with Facebook's rival social network Snapchat.
The social media giant hopes the images shared through Photo Magic will become conversation starters. It could result in lock-ins to Facebook's ecosystem.