Social media giant Facebook is looking to be everywhere and all around. While its family of apps boast of platforms such as Instagram and Whatsapp, it now wants to set up Messenger as another standalone chat/messaging app.
A recent addition of a feature to the Messenger app will allow people to make group payments within a chat conversation. Facebook already added person-to-person payments feature in 2015 and now it’s extending this feature to groups as well.
Partha Sundaram, product manager for Consumer Payments at Facebook India, wrote in a company blog post, “You can now send or receive money between groups of people on Messenger. It’s free, simple, fast and secure. Whether you are splitting a restaurant bill or chipping in for a group gift, all you need to do is go to a new or existing Messenger group conversation to get started.”
The payment feature allows users to accept and send money in a group. Users have to click on the payment icon and can then choose either everyone in the group or only a few members. They can then enter the amount they want to request per person or a total amount to be divided, specifying what the money is for. The group conversation will even show who all have paid already.
Sundaram added, “You don’t need to remember a password, your debit card information is safe and secure, and the service is totally free.”
Brand Buzz
Duo Adds Audio Calling Google’s video-calling app Duo has now added audio-only calls as well. The new feature, which was first launched in Brazil in March, is available globally now. Google says its audio-calling will work for users with low bandwidth connections. It has been tested on 2G networks as well. The search giant had launched two new apps last summer — Allo and Duo — to enter the messaging and calling apps arena. Duo was launched as competition to FaceTime and WhatsApp calling, but the move confused many users as Google’s other calling feature Hangouts is also still available.
Dig The Data
Sales Tracking A new report by social digital consultancy IF has found that 33 per cent of marketers are tracking sales through social media, with social platforms driving sales upwards of £50,000 per month. However, some B2B marketers are less adept at measuring social value, with 58 per cent not rating their ability to measure social at all. More than one in 10 marketers also appear nonchalant about the benefits — 13 per cent suggest that social media measurement is neither important or unimportant. Senior marketers are much more optimistic, with 67 per cent being confident that their ability to measure social will improve in the next two years.
