Facebook’s F8 annual developer conference certainly wasn’t short on product announcements. The leading social network launched two powerful new ways to find Messenger bots to use.
Bots are increasingly becoming handy assistants and source of information or news discovery.
There’s one big challenge though – discovery of the bots themselves. Facebook’s new Chat Extensions and Discovery tab on Messenger aims to address this issue that has plagued the platform’s 100,000 developers.
In a nutshell, Chat Extensions let you use Messenger bots in group chats. So, you can watch a game’s play-by-play with your buddies; or even collaborate on building a Spotify playlist.
On the subject of Spotify, the new bot will serve up playlist recommendations based on mood, activity, or genre. You and your buddies can search and share Spotify songs, albums and playlists directly. And yes, without ever leaving the Messenger app.
Your friends on the other end can also preview 30-second clips within Messenger, or visit the Spotify app to listen in full.
The new Chat Extensions feature can be invoked by tapping the blue “+” icon on the left of the text box.
To briefly touch on the new Discovery tab, this new piece of bot discovery feature helps you see recently used bots, browse bot categories, see trending experiences, or search for bots.
Source: Spotify
