Facebook Messenger Gains New Slack-Style Shortcuts Command System

Meta (aka Facebook) today announced the introduction of Messenger "shortcuts," a new Slack-style command system that allows users to speed up communication and get messages to their intended recipients.
Everyone Shortcut

Building on the @username tagging method to direct a message to a specific person in a chat, the new system introduces @everyone for grabbing everyone's attention in a group chat, and /silent to send a message to members of a chat without them being immediately notified about it during their off hours.
Silent Shortcut

Messenger is also gaining additional shortcuts over the next few weeks that aim to be both practical and fun, such as /Pay to send and receive money within one-on-one Messenger chats (U.S only) and /gif to easily find and send GIFs. Users need only type /gif and then their chosen topic to see GIF options appear.
Pay Shortcut

Lastly, Messenger on iOS is soon to support /shrug and /tableflip to more easily convey the old-school text-based emoticons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Meta says these are just the first of many more shortcuts coming to Messenger later this year.

Top Rated Comments

randolorian Avatar
16 months ago
Friends don't let friends use Facebook Messenger.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
larrylaffer Avatar
16 months ago
$30 per person for pizza? Where are these people eating??
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
friedmud Avatar
16 months ago
Ah - all these kids that don't know that all of this originated in IRC 25 years ago. Slack is literally just IRC that is tied to a paid service...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TwoBytes Avatar
16 months ago
WhatsApp feels so far behind Messenger.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Frantisekj Avatar
16 months ago
It could have holographic gold fountain and still no go for any fakebook s... on my phone..
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
VictorTango777 Avatar
16 months ago

Everyone is now getting trained to be a software developer
Yes, the Linuxheads who think that everyone should do everything using the command line.

Unfortunately, Apple is not immune to this phenomenon:

https://eclecticlight.co/2016/09/29/welcome-to-macos-sierras-new-console-its-buried-in-terminal/

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/network-utility-deprecated-macos-big-sur/
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)