One of the coolest things about chatting platforms is voice calling over data rather than the traditional terrestrial systems (VoIP). Skype was one of the first messaging apps to implement this and it enabled people to call other people around the world easily.
Other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook Messenger later on baked in the voice calling feature as one of their core functions. Messenger in particular introduced Voice calling way back in 2013 when the messaging app was only two years old. Now it has grown up to be a separate ecosystem from Facebook which later on was updated with video calling via data last year.
Facebook Messenger has always had 4 tabs on its interface: Your contact list, Groups, People with Messenger and the Settings tab. If you wanted to make a voice call to someone on Messenger, you had to go to either your contact list or the people with Messenger where within the chat, you only needed to tap the call button. Now, Facebook has changed all that by giving the call option its own tab.
When you tap on the call tab, it prompts you to “make your first call” complete with a list of people it thinks you may want to call. There is also a search button at the bottom if the suggested list does not have the contact you want to call.
This seems like a deliberate move by Facebook to get people calling on the platform. The previous arrangement made the voice calling ability appear as an afterthought and this will make it easier for you to call someone if you don’t want to chat.
