Facebook's Stan Chudnovsky on building Messenger's new video calling feature, and possible future livestreaming features
Context & Ripple Effects
In this TechCrunch interview, Messenger's head Stan Chudnovsky frames video calling as the app's next building block and openly floats livestreaming as a possible future addition — a notable signal because Messenger was still primarily a text product at the time.
The related coverage shows both bets landing: within two years Messenger shipped six-person group video chat with selfie masks, and by late 2017 it had added livestreaming through Facebook Live alongside its Instant Games platform. Meanwhile Facebook was hardening the broader Live infrastructure around it, from face-filter broadcasts announced at VidCon to scheduled broadcasts with pre-broadcast lobbies for verified Pages.
First-order effects
- Messenger users gain real-time video calling inside the chat app, moving the product beyond text and stickers toward synchronous media communication.
- Chudnovsky's public openness about livestreaming sets expectations that Messenger will become a second surface for Facebook's Live push, not just a private channel.
Second-order effects
- Messenger's video ambitions pull it onto the same Live tooling being built for Pages — filters, scheduling, and lobbies — so features funded for broadcasters get reused inside conversations, and vice versa when Messenger adds its own livestreaming.
- As Messenger layers on video calling and then games and streaming, it consolidates into Facebook's everything-app, raising the stakes for how much of the social experience Facebook can route through one client.
Third-order effects
- If messaging apps keep absorbing broadcast features, the line between private conversation and public performance erodes — foreshadowed by the later discovery that Facebook was testing code letting users watch videos together on Messenger while chatting.
- Structurally, this points toward chat platforms becoming video-first destinations in their own right, with Facebook operating multiple overlapping video surfaces (Feed, Live, Messenger) rather than one.
The trend: Messaging apps are evolving from text channels into full video-communication and broadcast platforms, with Messenger as Facebook's proving ground for merging conversation and livestreaming.