Facebook Messenger tests ‘conversation topics’

With more than 1 billion users and an increasing audience to keep engaged, the social media app is trying a feature that suggests discussion topics. Here’s how it looks—and works.

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Facebook Messenger is looking into increasing users’ opportunities for interaction.

Using data from users’ Facebook profiles—e.g., interests, events, recent interactions or music playlists—bots will generate conversation topics and post them in your Messenger feed.

In its testing phase, here’s how conversation topics appears:

TechCrunch reports:

These conversation starters appear to rely on Messenger’s connection to Facebook’s larger social network. It references things your friends have done lately including where they’ve been or events they plan to attend.

Suggested topics might include things like the songs a friend just listened to on a music streaming service, or an event they’ve indicated they’ve said they’re interested via Facebook Events.

Chris Messina, developer experience lead at @Uber, has access to the test feature. So far, he says he likes it for its ease of use.

Here’s why:

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