Facebook's Messenger apps for Android and iOS make it easy to navigate between conversations, helps you keep in touch with your friends or heckle your enemies, and even lets you tag yourself or others in the conversation with hilarious nicknames to keep things interesting.
But on the desktop site, Messages are tucked into the bottom right corner, and while looking for it you could be easily distracted by the latest feud between two celebrities you've never heard of, or some dumb post from that idiot you went to high school with. Sure you can select "See All" to view all messages, but it won't be enough to escape the distractions of Facebook.
If you'd like a big, full-screen messenger on your desktop, just type www.messenger.com into the search bar and voilà—messages so big they'll make it seem like the box on the standard desktop version was in the pool.
You can do all of the same things as before, like send GIFs, money, photos, and even the inflatable thumbs up—just click on the icon in the bottom right corner and hold until the thumb is big enough for your liking. On the right side of the screen, there's even an archive of photos you've sent within that conversation. So, if you really need to resend that picture of Rick James, or a Derrick Rose/Mr. Glass photoshop-job, it's right there for you.
This site has the added bonus of not looking like Facebook, which should help if you're slacking off at work, or at some other function where you should be paying attention, like in class or a conference (BO-RING).
It seems like nobody really knows about the site right now, even though it launched in April 2015. So go ahead and give it a shot. Using Messenger on your desktop without having to see the latest detritus slither down your News Feed is almost as liberating as draping yourself in velvet with no social repercussions.
Let us know what you think in the comment section below (even if it's just to call us old for the Seinfeld bombardment).
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6 Comments
this is really interesting
Interesting indeed. I suspect Facebook Messenger will merge/fold into WhatsApp in the near future. The latest update to WhatsApp messenger has an option to share your pictures to WhatsApp parent company, Facebook.
That's interesting. WhatsApp just hit a billion users, so it may be better to keep them separate for now, since Messenger isn't available worldwide.
But I agree, eventually, they'll be rolled into one service.
I absolutely love this! The simple and clean design makes it so easy to be connected to the world when you're at work without being distracted by all the extraneous stuff on Facebook. (tip: if you click on the blue circle with the "i" in the upper right hand corner, it closes the Conversation Information pane - removing any remaining distractions.) My productivity has seriously increased since I started using messenger.com!
Just a note...I find it really interesting that the only link to facebook.com from messenger.com is the Facebook Profile page of the person you're messaging (shown in the Conversation Information pane). Seems like there should be a Facebook logo in the upper right hand corner that would open Facebook in a new tab. Not complaining because I absolutely love messenger.com, but an interesting choice for Facebook.
Nice tips! And I agree, for a company that blasts their links everywhere, it's very surprising they haven't (yet) done that to the Messenger site.
Here's a simple Chrome extension that makes the interface darker:
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