Get ready for apps and brands to invade Facebook Messenger.
At its annual f8 developer conference today, Facebook revealed Messenger Platform and Messenger Business, which will allow developers and businesses to integrate with the social network's chat service.
According to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, the move will let people "express themselves in rich new ways and make their conversations better." How? GIFs, for starters.
In a demo, Zuckerberg sent a GIF from JibJab to David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook, who responded with a GIF from Giphy and some customized text from Legend.
Going forward, if a friend sends you a GIF from Giphy, for example, there will be an icon underneath the image that lets you open Giphy if you have it installed, or install it if you don't.
If you want to reply with something from another app, tap the three dots, which will expand the composer and display the apps you have installed up top, and suggested installs below.
That way, you can jazz up your conversations with more than just emoticons and stickers, while participating app developers potentially get more exposure.
Messenger Platform currently has 40 app partners, including ESPN; developers who want to get involved can sign up online.
Messenger Business
On the business side, meanwhile, Messenger Business will essentially allow you to get alerts about things you buy online and interact with customer service via Facebook Messenger rather than email.
If you buy something on Everlane, for example, you'll have the option at check-out to connect to Facebook Messenger and have order details sent there. Then, instead of getting email alerts about shipping or customer service questions, you'll get a notification within Messenger.
You can also speak to the company via Messenger by writing a message like you would to any of your friends. Check on order status, request a different size, or put in another order.
The customer service component will be powered by Zendesk's Zopim chat product.
"Online retailers zulily and Everlane are the first two companies using the integration to support their customers," Zendesk said in a blog post. "Their consumers can receive order information and interact with the companies through Messenger, while zulily and Everlane can engage with customers and manage support requests from Messenger using the same Zopim tools they already use for live chat."
Messenger Business will launch in the next few weeks, Facebook said, and interested companies can check it out via messenger.com/business.
Also at f8, meanwhile, Deborah Liu, manager of product marketing, announced a Facebook embedded video player, which will let people embed videos posted to Facebook on other sites across the Web.
Developers, meanwhile, will also be able to tap into Facebook Analytics for Apps, which will "give you a single place to understand how people are using your app," Liu said.