Facebook finally allowed its chatbot platform in Messenger to can accept online payments natively.
Facebook Messenger Bots Accept Online Payments
According to TechCrunch, Facebook's head of Messenger David Marcus announced on Monday, Sept. 12, onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, that around 30,000 chat bots in Messenger will allow online payments without the need to leave the Messenger and go on an external site. This means that the credit card info already stored by users in Facebook or Messenger can finally be used to make instant purchases in bots.
Marcus also revealed that, in order to support payments in Messenger, the company is working with all the major players in the industry including American Express, MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe and Braintree. Facebook developer blog post explains more about the new messenger features.
Messenger's Growth Effects On FaceBook's Online Payment System
Thanks to a forced migration from Facebook's main app, Messenger has now reached around 1 billion users. Facebook Messenger's chat platform composed already of around 30,000 chat bots has been used by millions across 200 countries.
Marcus explained that announced that all types of News Feed ads can point to Facebook's platform for chat bots. Facebook users can also share with friends the bots they enjoy. Developers can now build web views into conversations in order to pull in interfaces from their websites instead of forcing all bot interactions to happen through text. Marcus noted that developers will also receive more guidance from Facebook on building successful Messenger experiences, along with the addition of the new capabilities.
Facebook Messenger users could consume different types of media, scroll a list of flights, or even play basic games in Messenger, while still being in the chat window. All these features are part of the Messenger platform v1.2 that has been launched on Monday, Sept. 12, according to a Facebook press release.
According to TechTimes, it remains to be seen whether or not chat bots in Facebook Messenger are stable enough for making monetary transactions. Recently, many users have come with complaints regarding bugs on Facebook Messenger that sometimes have made the bots unusable.
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