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I don't think it's an attempt to get you to install messenger so much as it's a cheap tactic to drive engagement, generally. I do have Messenger installed on a

by rosser 7y ago

I don't think it's an attempt to get you to install messenger so much as it's a cheap tactic to drive engagement, generally. I do have Messenger installed on a device, and it also shows unread notifications for conversations where I sent the last message, a bit (I've never timed how long) after the message was sent. I assumed it was just some shitty dark pattern, that (enough) people are Pavlov-ing at unread notifications to pad their usage metrics nicely, because someone thought, "Let's poke people's brains to make the graphs look better!" or something. I mean, it is Facebook. EDIT: Phrasing

im3w1l 7y ago
In your case I have a different explanation. Displaying a notification and then having nothing to show for it weakens Facebook. People start thinking the notification is probably bogus and don't even click it. Maybe a short term boost, but very harmful in the long run. So then, why do they do it? I think it's because Facebook is made up of many separate teams that are trying to get ahead of each other. Some team did this and had really positive short term numbers and that got them all promoted, and then they hope nobody is able to attribute the long term loss to their team. This is Facebook creating fake engagement to scam itself.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
FWIW this has never happened to me. It also strikes me as suboptimal even as a "dark pattern": Clicking on conversations when you have the app open already, and not seeing new messages you expect, is frustrating without any conceivable payoff for Facebook. The pattern mentioned above–the app icon showing activity, which gets you to open the app–seems far more plausible.
- dspillett 7y ago
  I've seen in happen, particularly when switching between devices (there are times when this means I'm switching network completely, not just between devices on the same LAN) so I've assumed it is an artifact of "eventually consistency" between Facebook's many clusters and frontend nodes.
kreetx 7y ago
I use mbasic.facebook.com on my phone (since there is no messenger on facebook's mobile site). Reading messages on mbasic doesn't remove the "new messages" notification from the regular website. That is to say, this might also be a technical issue, i.e they keep state of "messages read" per front-end. And, of course, it's an engagement thing probably, too.
raverbashing 7y ago
To be honest it seems like a bug (which is totally not uncommon with fb) I've actually uninstalled the fb app because it was more buggy than using the mobile site. It seems that notification doesn't get cleared for a while in the mobile site. Since the messenger app does notify of new messages and the notification does get cleared (on the app) once you read it, something is not right on the backend.

by rosser 7y ago

im3w1l 7y ago

In your case I have a different explanation. Displaying a notification and then having nothing to show for it weakens Facebook. People start thinking the notification is probably bogus and don't even click it. Maybe a short term boost, but very harmful in the long run. So then, why do they do it? I think it's because Facebook is made up of many separate teams that are trying to get ahead of each other. Some team did this and had really positive short term numbers and that got them all promoted, and then they hope nobody is able to attribute the long term loss to their team. This is Facebook creating fake engagement to scam itself.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

FWIW this has never happened to me. It also strikes me as suboptimal even as a "dark pattern": Clicking on conversations when you have the app open already, and not seeing new messages you expect, is frustrating without any conceivable payoff for Facebook. The pattern mentioned above–the app icon showing activity, which gets you to open the app–seems far more plausible.

dspillett 7y ago
I've seen in happen, particularly when switching between devices (there are times when this means I'm switching network completely, not just between devices on the same LAN) so I've assumed it is an artifact of "eventually consistency" between Facebook's many clusters and frontend nodes.

kreetx 7y ago

I use mbasic.facebook.com on my phone (since there is no messenger on facebook's mobile site). Reading messages on mbasic doesn't remove the "new messages" notification from the regular website. That is to say, this might also be a technical issue, i.e they keep state of "messages read" per front-end. And, of course, it's an engagement thing probably, too.

raverbashing 7y ago

To be honest it seems like a bug (which is totally not uncommon with fb) I've actually uninstalled the fb app because it was more buggy than using the mobile site. It seems that notification doesn't get cleared for a while in the mobile site. Since the messenger app does notify of new messages and the notification does get cleared (on the app) once you read it, something is not right on the backend.