Last night, Facebook gave what seems to be an unintentional early glimpse of its future plans to people who have the companion app for the company’s F8 developer conference installed on their phone. A push notification from the app revealed that the conference will feature sessions about Facebook Messenger as a platform, and a version of the company’s Parse mobile app development platform for the Internet of Things.
While the notification didn’t provide details beyond that, and the content inside the F8 app surrounding those sessions hasn’t even been updated with details of the announcements outlined in the notification, either. Based solely on the information in Facebook’s notice, developers have a lot to look forward to.
By opening up Messenger as a platform for third-party developers, the social networking company will put itself in closer competition with other messaging apps like Line, which has built a massive conglomeration of different features on top of its app. It’s not yet clear what capabilities will be available for those devs who choose to take advantage of Messenger’s platform, so it’s hard to say how the app will stack up.
In a similar vein, it’s not clear what new Parse tools developers will get, but the mobile development platform currently offers cross-platform developer tools that power services like push notifications, app analytics and data storage. Any tools focused on the Internet of Things will likely make it easier for app developers to build services that take advantage of integrated devices like smart locks and internet connected thermostats.
There’s still at least one surprise up the company’s sleeve: the notification also contained a reference to something called the “Teleportation Station,” without any explanation as to what that may be.
Stay tuned to GeekWire today and tomorrow for more news from F8. We’ll be reporting live from Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote this morning at 10 a.m.
