Facebook is redesigning Messenger to be more simple

At Tuesday’s F8 developer conference at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the newest features of the Messenger app, among them a way for brands to use augmented reality to enhance the shopping experience. There have been some key wins for brands using the technology, like Jordan Brand’s AR filter on Snapchat that was tied to an exlusive product pre-release.

To make it easier to donate blood, Facebook also announced a “Blood Donations” tool. “The addition of augmented reality into the Kia Bot for Facebook Messenger allows us to provide today’s auto buyers with an extended interaction on the social platforms they use most“.

While users spend most of their time talking with offline friends who typically share a common language, Marketplace and Groups are too areas of Facebook where people are often exposed to strangers.

Silicon Valley tech firms are pouring money into augmented reality, a mix of the real and digital world best known from the game Pokemon Go.

Although Facebook (fb) doesn’t reveal how much money Messenger makes, Facebook expects it to become a major source of future revenue. This feature is the latest addition for the Facebook AR Studio, which powers expressive and immersive experiences across our family of apps. Other brands taking part in the launch are Asus, Kia Motors, and Nike. Similarly, ASUS will be offering an “unboxing” experience with the ability to take a close look as certain phone functions and features. Great news, especially after Facebook started throwing in everything but the kitchen sink into Messenger over the last few years. That’s more than half of the online population in the world, and roughly two out of every seven people on Earth.

“People first” messaging pervaded the rest of F8, with Instagram, WhatsApp, and other product updates stressing how Facebook is helping to enrich interpersonal relationships.

The social network will allow brands to use AR effects on Messenger, such as “trying on” new products.

The launch of this feature will allow translations between English and Spanish in Marketplace conversations across the U.S. The coming weeks will see an expansion of the feature in the said country.

“To date, there are over 300,000 active bots on Messenger, and over 8 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses each month; that’s 4x the amount of messages exchanged since just a year ago”, Marcus added.