Facebook is taking inspiration from Slack and will add special commands to its messaging app. At first, it will be possible to send a notification to everyone or to deliver a message silently.
On Tuesday March 29, Facebook announced its intention to provide its messaging application with text shortcuts, a bit like Slack. Initially, two special orders are available. @everyone allows you to send an “urgent” notification to all participants in a group, /silent allows the opposite, i.e. sending messages without notifications. Later, Facebook Messenger will have other shortcuts.
@everyone, use with moderation
We all have friends who never answer. Thanks to the command @everyone, we will be able to force them not to miss a notification. To indicate that you will be late or ask what to buy, @everyone is the perfect command. It allows to circumvent the possible “mute” that some would have put, and therefore to affect everyone in the group. Of course, we encourage you not to use it all the time. She could quickly annoy.
/silent, for late-night monologues
Did you just get dumped? Has your best friend done you a dirty trick? So the function /silent will change the lives of the people you confide in. Rather than harassing them with 40 notifications worthy of a theatrical monologue, you will be able to send them messages without notifications, so as not to wake them up. Facebook also presents this function as a good way not to disturb loved ones on vacation, with jet lag for example.
More shortcuts soon
Later, Facebook says it will roll out more shortcuts. Others are not yet revealed, others are already formalized such as:
- /gif : to quickly insert a GIF from an iPhone, without opening the dedicated tab.
- /pay: to send money to friends in countries where the function is available, not France.
- /shrug: to send a ¯_(ツ)_/¯
- /tableflip : to send a (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
With these new functions, Facebook Messenger becomes a somewhat more complete messaging application. They are already being deployed, but Meta does not say at what rate.