Social networking giant Facebook has updated the official Facebook messenger app, allowing Android users to sign in and use the instant messaging features using just their name and phone number.
With no Facebook account and email address required, the Facebook Messenger app with the new feature will be first available to Android users in India, Indonesia, Australia, Venezuela and South Africa, with support for more markets following soon after.
Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application which provides text and video communication. The mobile version of the popular service was released last year for major smartphone platforms, but users needed to sign up with a Facebook account.
The latest move is expected to help Facebook reach a larger audience, attracting smartphone users with no Facebook account to gradually use more Facebook services. The new sign-in feature also brings Facebook messenger level with popular instant messaging service Whatsapp. Of course, signing on to the messenger with just your name and number would mean that you would only be able to chat with your Facebook friends who are on your phone contact list.
Whether this will help Facebook Messenger reach the IM-app-of-choice status still remains to be seen. But this is definitely a good move from the social networking giant to make usage of its services easier and more accessible.
