During the opening keynote at Facebook’s F8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg just announced that you’ll soon be able to reach out to businesses from within the standalone Facebook Messenger app.
Instead of emailing a company’s support line to change your order or check tracking progress, you’ll be able to communicate via quick messages with embedded images and location data.
As TechCrunch’s Jon Russell noted on Twitter, its a feature that Asian messaging apps like Line have been using to transform their communication tools from simple chat apps into platforms that bring in significant revenue:
A really quick primer on how Line uses official accounts for celebrities and businesses — the model FB is adopting http://t.co/Hp0QSol7zj
— Jon Russell (@jonrussell) March 25, 2015
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While it’s an established model, we’ve yet to see a company successfully bring the strategy over to Western markets. With its billion-plus users, Facebook might have a big enough audience to jump-start the concept that others like Path have failed to execute on.
