Facebook announced on their blog that they made two major updates to their messaging services.
Hello is a new app built by the Messenger team. Hello connects with Facebook so you can see who’s calling, block unwanted calls, and search for people and places.
When you get a call, Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone. You will only see info that people have already shared with you on Facebook.
There’s a variety of functionality available between Hello and Facebook itself as well: You can search for people and businesses on Facebook and call them with just one tap.
For example, if a friend tells you about a new restaurant in your area, you can use Hello to find their hours, make a reservation, and get directions, all without leaving the app.
If you’re worried about privacy, Hello makes it easy to block unwanted calls.
From your settings, you can block specific numbers and adjust whether you want to automatically blocks calls from commonly blocked numbers. Blocked calls go straight to voicemail and can be reviewed in your recent calls.
As a competitor to Skype, Facebook also just debuted video calling in Messenger allowing users to have face-to-face conversations with friends.
The functionality allows users quickly start a video call from any conversation with just one tap.
If you’re chatting with a friend and want to switch to a face-to-face conversation, you can simply choose the video icon in the top right corner of the screen and start a video call right from within an existing Messenger conversation.
Video calling in Messenger is available for calls made from a mobile phone to another mobile phone, even if one person is on iOS and the other person is on an Android device.
Will you use these new Facebook Messenger services?
All photos and videos from the Facebook news blog.
