Facebook has been bringing new features to its Messenger App for quite a while now. Since the announcement of Messenger as an app platform, the app itself has also seen many more upgrades. The update brings usernames, codes and links to the popular messaging app.
Usernames
Messenger will now allow users to create personal usernames on the service. These usernames can then be used to add people more easily. Anyone can be simply make note of someone’s username and add them instead of searching for names, going through a huge number of people with similar names.
Even Facebook Pages will soon have their own usernames and become contactable using @username to find them.
Codes
![Facebook_MessengerCodeGreeting-1124-800x450[1]](http://propakistani.pk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Facebook_MessengerCodeGreeting-1124-800x4501.jpg)
In addition to usernames, there is a new feature called Messenger Codes. It is not too different from what’s available on Snapchat. Codes are circular, but similar to QR codes, and can be embedded into emails, websites, business cards etc. It is safer to share your codes rather than giving out your phone number or email address. Codes are unique to each account so there’s no privacy risk.
If a group of people are hanging out or working together, they can share their Messenger codes to add each other on the messaging service.
Links
Every user will now get a unique URL which will be based on their username. If you have a custom URL for your Facebook account, that will work too. The URL link isn’t any different from common ones and you can share it online with anyone on any platform. Visiting the link brings you straight to the chat.
The link comes in this format ‘m.me/ProPakistani’. Use of a username makes it easy for friends to find you as well. Business users will find the new feature particularly useful as customers will be able to interact using their page’s usernames to contact them.
Messenger’s Progress
Facebook announced one more bit of information about its messenger app. Messenger now boasts 900 million users. That’s about the same number of users which actively use the social network, i.e. 934 million. Messenger continues to gain popularity as it closes in on the world’s most popular messaging app, WhatsApp (another Facebook owned messaging app).
