Facebook rolls out new Messenger, AR products

The F8 conference brought some other announcements, including the launch of a ton of new Messenger features. For instance, the company unveiled a new tab, called Discovery, that enables users to browse and select bots from select partners, including Fandango, the Wall Street Journal, and Spotify. And the company is also introducing new “chat extensions,” enabling users to share select content – for instance, Spotify songs – directly with friends through the Messenger app.

Facebook keeps on finding new ways to step on Snapchat’s toes. In another notable announcement at the F8 developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will now let artists and developers work on building augmented reality lenses using AR Studio, a new development environment. (Facebook has released AR Studio to developers in a closed beta.) In addition, artists and developers will be able to design custom frames for the Facebook camera, which will overlay images over photos or videos. If that sounds similar to Snapchat’s lenses platform, that’s because, well, it’s pretty darn similar.

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