Facebook Messenger to come with read receipts

As if you haven't heard enough of Facebook already, here's another Messenger update. We reported two days ago that Facebook's planning a Messenger application for the iPad and plans to bring video chatting abilities to the Messenger application for the iPhone. Now, Facebook Messenger for iOS and Android has integrated features to show you whether your message has been read, when someone is typing and where they might be typing from. The 'read receipts' that the Messenger app provides also specifies which people have read a group message. The idea behind this addition is that when you talk to someone in real life, they are able to give you visual clues that they have received your message and are in the process of responding. The read receipts let you know if the recipient actually got your message, whether they missed them or whether they have just chosen not to respond.

Facebook Messenger says 'message received'

In addition to read receipts, you'll see the name of the town or city that a sender is sending you their message from, if they have their location services on. Of course, the problem with message received type services is when you want to ignore someone or don't want to respond to them. "I didn't get your message" has been an easy way to get out of awkward conversations, but even Apple's iMessage and BlackBerry's BBM don't allow you to use that line anymore. It's also unfortunate being on the other end of the awkward message. Sending a message and hoping for a response gets doubly gruesome when the message shows as delivered and read, but you haven't received a response yet.

Director of Product, Peter Deng says, "SMS has been around for 20 years, built it was for these T9 phones. We’re focused on leveraging all the capabilities of today’s devices to create a new messaging experience." According to TechCrunch, these updates will first be mobile only, which means only the mobile Facebook Messenger applications will integrate read receipts. After the mobile Messenger apps, the update will go to the regular Facebook mobile app and the web interface. Do you use Facebook Messenger? Or do you prefer to keep your various avenues of communication seperate from each other? Let us know in the comments section below.