Facebook's big plans for Messenger may also include publishers.
The company plans to open up its messaging platform to developers later this year during its F8 developer conference, according to a new report in Marketing Land. The feature will allow publishers to share content through Messenger via chat bots, with short descriptions linking back to articles on their website, the report says.
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Facebook is already rumored to be working on a software development kit that would allow developers to build chatbots that run inside of Messenger. Among the developers testing out this new software are publishers, Marketing Land's report says.
Publishers will use the bot-based service to share stories with readers inside of Facebook Messenger. Rather than the typical articles people may come across in their News Feeds, publishers would be able to share short snippets about stories in Messenger threads, along with links back to the full story on their website, according to the report.
If true, the move could help address some of the concerns publishers may have had with Facebook's Instant Articles, which don't directly provide traffic back to publishers' websites.
A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment.
Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, is slated for April 12-13. Following last year's big push to shift Messenger from a messaging service to a wide-reaching platform for third-party developers, we'e likely to hear much more about Facebook's plans then.
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