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Ditty uses some seriously sophisticated tech to transform plain text messages into popular songs. Some of the more popular songs are available as $0.99 in-app purchases, but being able to set your fantasy team trash-talking to Beethoven's Fifth is essentially priceless.
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JibJab: Maybe you didn’t know just how badly you needed it, but you finally have the ability to add a picture of your friend’s face to a dancing Tyrannosaurus Rex or to Beyonce’s body, and send it off in a group message. At last, a solid use for all of those pics of your buddy with his eyes closed. Gif: Megan Logan
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Using Camoji, you can take quick videos, apply filters and text, adjust the speed of playback and send to your friends as GIFs. Have a friend that bailed on your get-together last minute? No worries---get together for a group GIF and send it as a group message. FOMO will make sure she never bails again.
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Imgur: Browse or search the most popular images on the web, then send them to your friends directly from the app. No more saving to camera roll or screenshot-ing---you can share the image to your friends in Messenger right from the app.
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Giphy, the popular GIF-sharing site, is using Messenger Platform to launch its first mobile app, Giphy + Messenger. Users can search, select, and send GIFs from Giphy's vast selection without having to exit their Messenger conversation. Looking for the perfect reaction GIF to answer the friends canceling plans when you were secretly searching for an excuse to stay in and watch Netflix anyway? Giphy has you covered---a quick search of “yasssss” provides plenty of fodder.
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Pic Stitch’s Messenger integration makes it easy to share the picture collages you don’t necessarily want to push out to all of your random Instagram or Facebook friends and followers. You can create and message collages quickly, and share them privately, without halting the conversation. Megan Logan
Launch Slideshow
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At its annual F8 Developers Conference yesterday morning, Facebook launched the Messenger Platform, bringing new integration and methods of information sharing (read: GIFs) to the company’s messaging experience. Over 40 apps are already available, with plenty more on the way. But which are worth your time?
You’ve already got more Messenger power-up options than you likely need, so we sifted through pile to see which ones deserve a place in your phone in the gallery above.
As for how to use the new apps, it’s simple. When you’re in the Messenger app, simply select the ‘…’ option above the keyboard in a message. You’ll be able to choose, download and use the integrated apps from there.
What’s next?
You may have noticed that most of these apps—as well as the rest of the field—are highly GIF-centric. Which makes sense! Messenger has leaned on words and stickers this whole time, so adding video (looping or otherwise) is a natural evolution. But even if none of these has much appeal to you now, it’s not hard to imagine other potential Messenger tie-ins worth waiting for. Unlikely suspects like the Weather Channel—which wasn’t available at the time of our testing—will continue to put a unique spin on traditional photo sharing, in this case by overlaying weather conditions. Other future apps will likely create one-off experiences, like Ditty’s text-to-song, that range from goofy to bizarre. There’s plenty of potential to be realized.
The reality is we don’t know just how far developers can take the Messenger Platform; it’s not even two days old yet. For now, though, at least a handful of them are off to a great start.
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