Facebook will Provide Background Info on Strangers Messaging You
Facebook will Provide Background Info on Strangers Messaging You
Going about, doing what you do on the web and then you get a notification. It’s a message on Facebook but “Who is this person? Do I know him? Should I respond?”.
That is a position where most us have been in quite often since the inception of social networks. Now, Facebook Messenger will show some information about the stranger who just tried to start a conversation. No need to waste time going through the strangers’ profile anymore.
Facebook has recently started rolling out an update for its Messenger app which will bring this biographical info directly into conversations. This information will be presented when chatting with someone for the first time. It will also appear for friends with whom you haven’t been in touch for a while.
The contextual information will be available for strangers as well as friends with whom you haven’t been in touch for a while
The new feature comes after Facebook’s release of the Hello dialler and caller ID app. The new feature works in a similar fashion giving you an introduction to the person you are about to have a conversation with. However, the feature is limited by the privacy controls of the sender’s account. The information displayed is from the publically available account information so there’s no privacy bypass here.
Facebook Hello and the new feature show the social network’s increasing interest to connecting with people in your life other than just friends. This could help identify potential friends but its major advantage comes for professionals. Contextual information about the sender can help professional conversations for people not added as friends. One could see how this starts to encroach on LinkedIn’s territory.
Only publicly shared account information will be available so stringent privacy controls could limit how much you see
In the past, Facebook hid messages from unknown people in the other inbox but it seems that’s changing now, at least for the Messenger platform. The Messenger app seems to be getting quite a lot features added to it. With features like sending money to friends and voice transcription being tested and rumours of being able to play games using the app, there is a lot still to come for the Messenger platform.
The new feature will initially be released in the UK, US, India and France with a global release expected soon after that.
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