Facebook is looking to make Messenger more than an annoying extraneous download, turning it into a multi-app platform soon. Meanwhile, Twitter celebrates nine years since its debut took South by Southwest (SxSW) by storm by ironically doing all it can to stop Twitter network-exploiting video streaming app Meerkat from doing the same at this year's SxSW -- with the opposite effect.

It's time for Social Media Sunday!

Facebook:

Messenger to Become a Multi-app Platform?

Facebook Messenger -- the app Facebook users loved to hate, because the extra app was basically forced upon them -- may become more lovable, and capable, if the company's purported plans for the app work out.

According to Mashable, which broke the story based on an anonymous source, Facebook plans to announce it's opening up Facebook Messenger to third-party apps during the F8 Developer Conference, being held next week in San Francisco.

Purportedly, the announcement will include unveiling 20 third-party services already working on top of Messenger, which will become a communications platform in its own right.

Details are still sketchy as to how apps are integrated and which partners are on board, but the reports make sense: As many Facebook owners (annoyingly) know, the social network is working on moving mobile messaging away from the main Facebook app and into its own domain.

Facebook Phone App Testing

Another communications avenue not capitalized yet by Facebook is the phone. But that may be changing too, if an early test invite spotted by Android Police turns out to be more than just an experiment.

The Android-centric blog got a screenshot of an invitation to "Try Phone [FB-ONLY]" on an Android-based Facebook app. However, tapping the "install" button led to a dead end "no page found" error, so it's not clear if the "experiment" was more of an accident.

Still, it would make sense for Facebook to take advantage of the fact that many users treat Facebook like a 21st century version of the old-fashioned white pages. Whatever it was, it shows that Facebook is truly looking at every type of communication it can possibly insinuate itself into.

Twitter:

Anniversary Makes Twitter Almost a Decade Old

The annual South by Southwest festival is happening in Austin, Texas, this week, which means it's also the anniversary of Twitter's launch. It was nine years ago that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted, "Just setting up my twttr," from his feature phone (the first iPhone wouldn't arrive until a year later).

New Police Reporting Tools For Threatening Tweets

Since Twitter's adorable beginnings, however, Twitter has grown up into a wild and sometimes even threatening digital commons. The social media network has recently attempted various ways to combat cyber-bullying, and has introduced yet another tool: emailed threat reports.

Twitter users who report a threatening tweet can now receive, if they'd like, an email report that summarizes the missive, its delivery date and time, and other information that police may want to take down in a report, according to Mashable.

It doesn't mean Twitter is reporting threats to the police, but it's a tool for threatened users to easily have all the relevant information about a threat they reported to Twitter in one place -- should they decide to file a police report.

"We can't compel law enforcement to act on threats (the user will have to do that him/herself), but we can provide users with the information law enforcement will request from them," Twitter's Nu Wexler said to Mashable.

Vine Speeds Video Loading on iOS, Offline Too

Twitter-owned Vine has updated its iPhone app to preload videos before users even launch the app. To do this, its making videos more compressed for faster download, and implemented network caching, which is how apps store content for offline viewing, according to Engadget's report.

It means Vine fans can not only view videos faster from the second they launch the app, but can also scroll through their queue (for a bit) while they're away from data coverage. The app upgrade is coming to Android soon.

Meerkat Madness: Fund Raising & Huge Buzz

Just like Twitter itself did, nine years ago, Twitter livestream aggregator-app Meerkat has taken SxSW by storm this year. The app allows users to tap into livestreams tweeted by any number of sources, and is being touted as the return of the "Web 1.0" livestream broadcasting craze in mobile form.

And it's putting numbers behind the buzz: This week, Meerkat reportedly went from an obscure app to topping 160,000 users earlier in the week -- to over 300,000 users by Friday night, according to TechCrunch. This, despite the fact that Twitter tried to hobble Meerkat's access to its network and promote its own copy-cat videostreaming app, as we reported last week.

It's not just user numbers that are jumping through the roof, though. TechCrunch also reported that Meerkat just closed on a $12 million funding round, valuing the startup at $52 million after the funding. The ultimate irony is that Twitter's power play to shut down Meerkat's broad access may have helped the startup find fundraisers during the week.

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