Facebook is sprucing up its messenger with seasonal features in line with the festivities. Having the ability to know what people like and dislike places the company in a comfortable position to roll out fan favourite products with minimal repercussion.

After keeping Photo Magic in test mode for the last month the service is now available to more people, supportive feedback, FB is making it easier to share more photos, especially during busy period of the year. The photo sharing feature in the app is growing at a fast rate with approx. 9.5 billion photos are sent each month however there is still a lot of friction in sending the photos taken to friends who are in them. Now, after you take a picture of a friend or group of friends, if you want to, it can be sent immediately, Photo Magic will be able to send the pictures to all on the picture.

Here’s How It Works

By recognizing your Facebook friends in the photos you take (just like when tagging or sharing photos on Facebook), Messenger can create a group thread for you to share the photos with those friends in two taps. And you can turn this feature on or off at anytime as well as control if you are recognized in your friends’ photos in the timeline and tagging section of your Facebook settings. First you need to make sure the feature is enabled, once you’ve taken the photo a reminder will appear to send the photos to those in the picture and you can opt to either send or cancel.

Make messaging more fun

There are also additional features being rolled out to make conversation more fun with various color choices, emoji and nicknames. For iOS, you can just tap on the people’s names at the top of a conversation to change the family group thread to a festive red, instead of thumbs up something more timely like a party hat. For Android in the conversation you can change the colors, nicknames and emojis as many times as you want, and when you make a change, the people you’re talking to will see what updates you selected.

White Xmas

And now for the holidays, you can share some winter fun, even if your current weather status isn’t set to North Pole. Users can send Santa, Christmas tree or snow-related sticker or emoji to a friend bringing the festive season much closer.

For those who like he snow globe Android chat head effect before, its back! For a limited time this season, your friends’ chat heads will appear as winter wonderlands (if you’re north of the Equator, of course). Similarly, to celebrate the new year later on, your friends’ chat heads will become confetti-filled.

These are seasonal features that will make the messaging experience meaningful and bring the mood a level up for those who cant pry themselves away from their screens, we hope!