Facebook Introduces New Shortcuts on Messenger

Facebook has today announced the launch of new shortcuts on Messenger, that promise to help you get things done in the shortest number of keystrokes, such as notifying everyone in a chat of an important announcement to get maximum exposure.

While typing ‘@’ and a person’s name tags a specific person in the chat, using the new @everyone shortcut will notify all participants in the chat. It is ideal for group reminders, or when you need to crowdsource an answer to a time-sensitive question. This way, your message gets to everyone and nobody misses out.

Similarly, when you use the new /silent shortcut, the members of your chat will not receive a notification of your message at all. Sending a message with /silent removes the anxiety of interrupting someone with a non-urgent pop-up notification.

Several other shortcuts are coming soon to Messenger as well, including a /pay shortcut that makes it even easier to send and receive money right in your one-on-one Messenger chats. 

/gif (coming soon on iOS): GIFs help us express ourselves, conveying a sense of identity through pop culture references, which in turn help form our larger digital culture

/shrug & /tableflip (coming soon to iOS): Sometimes even a gif can’t compare to the emotions conveyed by the old-school text-based tableflip “(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻” and shrug “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” emoticons.

The /pay shortcut will initially be available to iOS and Android users in the US only.