Messenger Gets Both Mentions And Reactions

Facebook has had the Mentions and Reactions features on its main platform for years, but not on its Messenger app. Now it will, which should help add some spice to conversations and cut through the clutter. The Reactions feature will provide users with more options to express the particular emotion they feel while Mentions will help tag specific names during group conversations.

For those who might not be aware of what either the Reactions or the Mentions features are, the former is basically made up of simple emotions to signal approval in different ways while the latter is meant to tag specific people. For example, if there is a photo that a user loves on the main Facebook platform, they can hover over the like button and choose the heart icon. If they want to direct comments to specific people, they would write @name and the target user would be notified.

This is basically how it works with the Messenger app, PC Mag reports, where users can add Reactions to the conversation on top of emojis. Being able to notify group chat participants that they are being specifically Mentioned is useful as well, especially if the conversation is particularly messy.

Aside from making a lot of things easier for users to do and upgrading the appeal of Messenger, these new additions are also great for bringing the service back to its roots. As Tech Crunch notes, Facebook is getting a lot of flak for being too direct in injecting its social media elements into what is meant to be primarily a chat service.

Not only will both Reactions and Mentions vastly improve the messaging experience, especially for group chats, it will also take the edge off of many users’ opinion on Facebook. This makes a lot of business sense in the long run, especially if the social network wants to boost its monetization of Messenger.