Facebook is ready with a new feature for messenger called Message Requests that will help people chat with anyone and non-Facebook friends to connect. The idea behind the new feature is to streamline the messaging process. Earlier, when messages were sent to an unknown person, or someone we were not friends with on Facebook, the messages would directly go to the ‘Other’ folder. And in most cases, these messages were received but conveniently missed since there was no notification.

This is how David Marcus made the announcement:

Forget phone numbers! Today, we’re excited to start rolling out Message Requests for Messenger. We truly want to make Messenger the place where you can find and privately connect with anyone you need to reach, but only be reached by the people you want to communicate with. 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.

But with this new feature, the messages that usually go to the ‘Other’ folder will now appear as Message Requests. The user will be able to view the message and then choose to respond or ignore the message not having the sender know about it. If the receiver responds to the message, it will automatically relegate to the normal inbox.

Facebook

David explains how simple it is going to be:

The rule is pretty simple: If you’re friends on Facebook, if you have each other’s contact info in your phone and have these synced, or if you have an existing open thread, the new messages from that sender will be routed to your inbox. Everything else will now be a message request, minus spam attempts that we will continue to ruthlessly combat.

In the end, he assures this is not all from Facebook Messenger.

While this may seem like a small change, it’s actually a foundational development. Look for more in the months to come as we continue to improve ways to find the people you want to communicate with. And as always, please let us know how we can make this better for you.

Thanks to this new feature, we no longer have to worry about the ‘Other’ Folder and undiscovered messages.

Image courtesy: Facebook