LONDON: In a bid to make its Messenger chat platform more useful — and popular – Facebook has let go of the ‘Other Folder’ of its inbox and introduced a new Message Requests feature that lets you chat with anyone in the world, by choice of course. Earlier, the Other folder used to automatically filter messages sent by strangers, keeping them separate from the main inbox. It was accessible via the Web alone though.
The fresh overhaul to Messenger will now leave all the messages you receive — from anyone — in the inbox itself in the form of a request (to chat) and Facebook will allow you to accept or ignore these ‘new’ requests without the sender knowing that you read the message.
“Now, the only thing you need to talk to virtually anyone in the world, is their name. As a result of these changes, we’re removing the “Other Folder” that was only accessible from the web, and are enabling you to accept or ignore new requests without the requestor knowing you’ve read their message.” Facebook’s David Marcus announced via a post.
Facebook has insisted that it will continue to ‘ruthlessly combat’ spam attempts, which are a given now as everything will be routed to your inbox, like it or not.
“Message requests tell you when someone you might know has sent you a message. You’ll see Message Requests at the top of your inbox when you’ve received one. When you open a message request, you can choose Ignore to hide the conversation, or choose Reply to move the conversation to your inbox,” Facebook explained.
