Facebook Messenger To Get Third-Party App Support

Facebook Messenger is reportedly getting a big overhaul. The chat app is opening up to third party apps during upcoming F8 developer conference in San Fransisco next week, according to reports.

Mashable reported that the social networking giant is planning to announce about 20 third-party services whose apps will work on top of Messenger when the integration rolls out.

The report did not mention the names of the early partners.

Facebook Messenger was launched as a standalone app four years ago and last summer it was moved out of the main Facebook app entirely, leaving many users annoyed.

Facebook has also been regularly expanding the Messenger's feature set. Recently it announced the addition of mobile payments.

According to TechCrunch: "At first, Facebook will focus on how third parties can build ways for content and information to flow through Messenger. Depending on the success of the early experiments, Facebook may then mull bringing more utilities to Messenger."

More will be revealed next week during F8. Stay tuned!