Facebook Messenger: for iPhone, Android and Blackberry

Although not the world's biggest Facebook fan, I was still interested to try Facebook's Messenger which claims to be "a faster way to send mobile messages to friends".

The app lets you -

Send messages instantly to other friends who have Messenger
Chat with friends who are on Facebook
Get free push notifications for incoming messages
Add location and photos to messages
Reach friends via text message if they don't have Messenger yet
Access sent and received message on both Messenger and Facebook
Create group conversations for making plans on the go
Add more friends to group conversations at any time
Control alert and location settings for each conversation

Largely, it's a repackaged messaging module from Facebook that brings a few tweaks to the already largely available functionality.  It doesn't really take any leaps or bounds away from the main app; it does however, step on the toes of Google.  Taking on Google Plus in a big way is perhaps the Social Media giants' way of banking that more people have an [active] Facebook account than a GMail account (foolishly so, in my opinion).

I think this may be a step in the wrong direction as, where Facebook certainly [for now] dominates the Social Media world, Google has a tight reign on the messaging realm.  Just about everyone I know has a GMail account, probably around half the people I know have a Facebook account.

I don't particuarly care for the app, but then I've never been a fan of Facebook 'messaging' in general; I don't get notifcations of new messages at all sometimes, and late other times.  If I wasn't a Google Plus user, I may be more interested to try it; and perhaps this is Facebook's attempt to 'nip in the bud' and try and stop what is every day looking more and more like the prophesied mass-exodus of Facebook.

Of course, if you're a Blackberry user, you're probably just grateful that you have some messaging functionality right now.