Photo: Facebook

Today Facebook unveiled the future of Messenger, and it’s actually quite ambitious.

It’s clear that the social giant wants Messenger to be the one-stop for not just messaging, but all sorts of app interactions. Businesses will also be able to chat directly with customers through Messenger, which opens the door for communicating directly with brands like never before.

Sending money in Facebook Messenger is that easy.

Facebook is taking on Square, PayPal, and Venmo with its own digital payments service. Starting today, Facebook Messenger will allow users to instantaneously transfer real money at zero cost.

Facebook has just released a ‘Lite’ version of their app on the Google Play store that is meant to use less data and work on even slower mobile data networks. The app is aimed at low-end Android devices and targeted towards users in developing markets like Nepal and Bangladesh where 2G mobile data is still prevalent.

Ditch Facebook Messenger and bring chat back to the original app. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

If you’re one of the many who hate having to use a dedicated app for Facebook chat, you can bring messaging back to the original app with Facebook Chat Re-Enabler. It’s a free download and easy to install, and it lets you do away with the standalone Facebook Messenger app.

WhatsApp will make you wait for voice calling. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging services on mobile, has long had plans to step up its assault against the likes of Skype and Viber with a free voice calling feature that was initially promised for the second quarter of 2014. Now the company’s CEO has confirmed that the launch is planned for early 2015 instead.