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Facebook Wants Real People to Help You Order Stuff Inside Messenger

Facebook, currently on a mission to beef up its Messenger platform in a multitude of ways, may just give everyone a personal shopping assistant inside the app. The Information reports that sources fam...
Facebook Wants Real People to Help You Order Stuff Inside Messenger
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Facebook, currently on a mission to beef up its Messenger platform in a multitude of ways, may just give everyone a personal shopping assistant inside the app.

    The Information reports that sources familiar with the plans are talking about Facebook’s newest addition to the Messenger lineup – a personal assistant codenamed “Moneypenny” (a obvious nod to the James Bond character).

    I doesn’t appear that Facebook is building its own Siri or Cortana, but instead building the framework for a service to rival startups like Magic or Operator. The Information says “Moneypenny” will “allow users to ask real people for help researching and ordering products and services, among other tasks.”

    So, Facebook might want to let users message real people, who can provide help in shopping or purchasing other services.

    Since unbundling Messenger from the main Facebook app last April, Facebook has been hard at work turning Messenger into something way more than a texting app.

    The company turned it into a developer platform, allowing appmakers to build directly for the platform. More germane to the news of “Monneypenny”, Facebook is trying to turn Messenger into a platform to connect businesses with their customers – for the purposes of customer service, order tracking, and more.

    A few months ago, Facebook gave Messenger its own web version. More recently, Facebook has allowed games to be played inside the platform. P2P payments just went live for all users in the US.

    And now, you don’t even have to have a Facebook account to use Messenger.

    Not much else is known about a timeline for “Moneypenny”‘s launch. It’s currently going through internal testing, according to the report.

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