Facebook Believes Messenger Will Anchor a Post-App Internet

The week before David Marcus will take the stage at Facebook's annual F8 developers' conference to announce new tools to help businesses interact with you and me on Messenger, he tries to explain his ambitious idea for the future. Sure, he'll tell the throngs of developers gathering today at San Francisco's scenic former US Army post, Fort Mason, about bots. He'll announce a new bot platform, new ways to find apps, and an artificial intelligence-powered bot engine. At the end of the day, there'll even be free Messenger messenger bags! But all these announcements are just data points that herald something much grander, according to Marcus, who is vice president of messaging at Facebook.