The new standalone Messenger app which social network Facebook has launched for iPhone and Android in the US only enables the Facebook members to send ‘free’ instant messages on their mobile handsets to anyone in their list of 'friends.'

Apparently launched as a contender to the BlackBerry’s highly popular Messenger service (BBM), the new Facebook Messenger app also allows users to push out group messages too.

Industry watchers opine that the Facebook app could not have come at a better time than this, especially keeping in view the fact that BBM has just received a huge spate of publicity – both as a communication tool of choice for many London rioters and as a useful channel for people trying to warn one another to stay away from violence-ridden areas.

Noting that the Facebook Messenger works in a “fast and easy way,” company spokesperson Meredith Chin elaborated that even though the app does not support Facebook’s "group" or "list" functions which make it possible to post messages to entire groups on the Facebook Web site, it does, however, allow people who receive messages to add their friends.

To put it differently, the app – which necessitates Facebook login credentials to work – enables users to send phone messages even to those people who are not signed up to the social network; as has been elucidated by Facebook in a recent blog post: “You can use Messenger to reach all of your friends - whether they're on Facebook or in your phone contacts. All you have to do is type the person's name.”