Messaging apps offer to do it all

Messaging apps do a lot more these days than send messages. Facebook’s Messenger app is the perfect example. Last week, the company added the ability to let Messengers users send and receive money. And on Wednesday, the company announced that users of its stand-alone Messenger app would be able to download new apps that add extra features.

Right now, those new features are mainly limited to more advanced messages, like text messages that turn into songs or one that lets you animate selfie photos. But the company announced tools for developers to build in even more capabilities, plus partnerships with stores, so that users can track online purchases and packages in Messenger.

Such moves are part of a trend toward messaging apps becoming do-it-all services. The model, in many ways, comes from the messaging giants popular in China and Japan: Tencent’s WeChat (known as Weixin in China), and Line, which became a powerful alternative to text messaging after the devastating Tohoku earthquake of 2011.

“Facebook or these messenger apps, they’re wondering, what’s their future?” said Brian Blau, a research director at the technology research firm Gartner. “How are they going to engage? Are they going to risk having all their users in one app basket? Wouldn’t it be better if they were more of a platform and could have users in all sorts of areas and have businesses come to rely on them?”

For users, beefier and more powerful messaging apps could be a logical extension of the activities they’re already doing - or the apps could quickly overwhelm. It all depends on execution, and WeChat and Line appear to be getting it right.

WeChat, which has some 500 million users worldwide, lets users make voice and video calls, communicate with groups of up to 500 people and send and receive money. But the app also includes a complete payments platform, like Apple Pay or the coming Samsung Pay, that lets people check out in stores and restaurants using the app, and also shop online.

And because WeChat is open to integration with all kinds of other apps, Tencent has encouraged developers to create the ability to build many other functions within the app. Now you can use WeChat to check into hotel rooms and use the app as a digital key, schedule doctor’s appointments and track prescriptions, buy train tickets, pay school tuition fees and order items for delivery. (The app Call a Chicken lets people order chicken dishes for delivery.)

Tencent has also created its own games for WeChat and has licensed TV and movies to stream within the app.Similarly, Line handles messaging and voice, video games, mobile payments, TV shows and movie studios, ultrapopular stickers (that its users can create and sell on the platform), a taxi-calling service that rivals Uber and even a physical store in Tokyo.

In the United States, messaging apps are moving slightly more slowly. Facebook Messenger is getting closer, with the new payments service and third-party app announcements. You can make voice calls with the app over both Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection - although there’s no video calling and its sticker collection left a lot to be desired, at least for now.

The new apps introduced by Facebook this week include several sticker apps, which have proved popular in WeChat and Line. Users can also download a weather app from the Weather Channel and will have the ability to send video messages  with special effects attached.

Snapchat, which made its name with disappearing messages, also has a host of new features. The app has a payment service called Snapcash, and has a more traditional chat service as well as live video chat.

More recently, the company has moved toward becoming a media platform. Snapchat lets users create short videologues called Snapchat Stories. It has also partnered with media companies for its Snapchat Discover feature, which delivers short videos and even long text stories from companies like CNN, National Geographic and Vice.

WhatsApp, also owned by Facebook, keeps it simple. The app is slowly rolling out voice calling features to Android users, but does little else besides chat, video and photo sharing, and audio messages. That simplicity and focus on messaging with no texting charges (or ads) has made it the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than...