Facebook’s early efforts to turn Messenger into a service that people can use for shopping or getting news or weather sputtered quickly. But two years on, the Messenger effort is showing signs of life.
Several developers say they have been selling more bots and applications through Messenger in recent months. Trip-booking service SnapTravel, for instance, has seen its cumulative sales through Messenger grow from around $1 million as of May 2017 to around $10 million now, according to CEO Hussein Fazal. Msg.ai, which develops tools for customer service and marketing for messaging apps, has seen enough of a pickup in business to hire a new executive and marketing team, said Msg.ai CEO Puneet Mehta.
