Facebook Messenger For Windows Desktop Chat Client Launches After Leaking
Microsoft’s Messenger Live site that lets users Facebook Chat, read updates from friends, and share is technically Facebook’s most popular app according to AppData, with 22.4 million monthly active users and a staggering 19.1 million daily active users for an incredible stickiness percentage of 85.5%. Messenger for Windows could bring some of this usage to where there’s no Hotmail, SkyDrive, or other Microsoft features to distract users.
Facebook loves to test its products on small percentages of its user base to check for usage patterns and adoption rates before rolling them out globally. It even has a specially designed piece of infrastructure called Gatekeeper to manage who can see what. When testing browser-based products Facebook has full control, showing and hiding features to different users at will, with guinea pigs typically unable to opt in or out of tests.
In testing one of it’s first downloadable desktop products, Facebook suddenly found it was the guinea pigs who were running the experiment. When a blogger for Israel’s TechIT was admitted to the Messenger for Windows test group after the product was announced in November, he was given an unprotected download link. He promptly published it. We picked up on the news and suggested Facebook face facts and publicly release the link for those desperate to download. That’s just what it did, making the client available in the Help Center, but making no formal announcement.
Facebook loves to test its products on small percentages of its user base to check for usage patterns and adoption rates before rolling them out globally. It even has a specially designed piece of infrastructure called Gatekeeper to manage who can see what. When testing browser-based products Facebook has full control, showing and hiding features to different users at will, with guinea pigs typically unable to opt in or out of tests.
In testing one of it’s first downloadable desktop products, Facebook suddenly found it was the guinea pigs who were running the experiment. When a blogger for Israel’s TechIT was admitted to the Messenger for Windows test group after the product was announced in November, he was given an unprotected download link. He promptly published it. We picked up on the news and suggested Facebook face facts and publicly release the link for those desperate to download. That’s just what it did, making the client available in the Help Center, but making no formal announcement.
