Facebook Messenger's head David Marcus recently spoke at the Dublin Web Summit about the social network's instant messaging (IM) service, following the app's monthly active users skyrocketing from 300 million to 700 million since the ex-PayPal president took over last year. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in March that the service is an important communication tool, while the company's plan is to connect Messenger users to the mobile web, and replace apps with chats. The instant messaging service also added a Snapchat-like disappearing messages feature.
Marcus told Business Insider that messaging is only second to social networking. He explained that before the Internet existed people had face-to-face conversations, according to Business Insider.
The five largest messenger apps today have over 3 billion total accounts. Non-Facebook ones include Viber, WeChat, and Line.
This year phone messaging apps are used by over 1.4 billion people, or about three-quarters of all worldwide smartphone users. eMarketer reported that figure is up almost one-third from last year.
Messenger is trying to draw in customers who are not among the 1.5 billion Facebook account holders. People without a Facebook account can now get the Messenger app by using their phone number.
Marcus' next goal is for Messenger users to do all business transactions on the IM service. That includes those with retail assistants, telecom call centers, and airline ticketing agents.
Messenger hoped to connect its 700 million active users with 45 million active businesses on Pages. The bridge is "Businesses on Messenger."
Facebook Messenger also recently added a Snapchat-like feature. The disappearing self-destructing messages can be turned on by tapping the hourglass icon in the upper-right corner of the app, according to Rapid News Network.