Dive Brief:

• StubHub has introduced an iMessage app, Facebook Messenger chatbot and Facebook integration, according to a press release. The launches are timed with an update of the StubHub app.  
• StubHub’s iMessage app is designed for users to browse events and communicate about tickets with friends. On iMessage, a StubHub customer can select up to five sets of tickets that they share with friends, who compare and vote on them. Votes are revealed to the customer within iMessage and tickets can be purchased by any member of a group conversation without leaving the platform. 
• The Facebook integration, which follows Facebook log-in functionality initiated last year, allows StubHub app users to connect with their friends on the social media network to check out events those friends want to attend, and the artists, teams and venues they like. On Facebook Messenger, StubHub likened its new chatbot to a personal concierge that recommends upcoming and local events based on information provided by users. StubHub previously rolled out a Skype chatbot. 

Dive Insight:

StubHub can be used for more than most people realize — and the company wants to get the word out. By inserting itself into messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, which has 1.2 billion monthly users, where consumers spend time digitally, StubHub hopes to widen the scope of chances it will be thought of by them and their companions — and possibly boost awareness and sales of offerings that may be unfamiliar or underperforming.  

StubHub’s moves are part of a larger trend of businesses recognizing transactions previously made online are transitioning to messaging platforms. Like Stubhub, Starbucks has an iMessage app and, earlier this month, the coffee chain updated the app to send virtual gift cards through the platform. Both StubHub and Starbucks are leveraging the conversational nature of messaging platforms to permeate the lives of their regular customers and those customers’ friends. If commerce is the future of mobile messaging, perhaps that future is growing closer.

Apple and Facebook are increasingly recognizing the value of group interactions to companies like StubHub and Starbucks. Facebook is expected to unfurl bots that work inside group chats to further enable companies to penetrate friend circles. Although prolific, chatbots have been problematic, but TechCrunch reasons the group bots could rectify issues around discovery and bots seeming inhuman. The publication reveals Facebook is opening up APIs to developers to fuel group chatbot creation.