Facebook to add 'secret conversations' to Messenger app to boost usage

Menlo Park, California

TWO years ago, Messenger, a photo and text messaging service, appeared to be almost an afterthought at Facebook, the social networking giant.

Messenger often took a back seat to the limelight enjoyed by Whats- App, the messaging app that Facebook had bought for US$19 billion. And Messenger's capabilities were so limited that you could not send friends an animated GIF, as you could with many other messaging services.

But since mid-2014, Facebook has been playing a furious game of catch-up with Messenger. That June, Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, hired a PayPal executive, David Marcus, to t…