2ya Is An Android & iOS Facebook Chat App With Built-In Content Discovery & Sharing
Multipurpose third-party Facebook chat apps are nothing new for Android and iOS users, but you won’t find too many options sporting an integrated search tool to help you find the exact item of interest that you wish to share with your friends. Say hello to Sprylogics International’s 2ya – an unofficial cross-platform Facebook messenger for Android and iOS that adds content discovery and sharing capabilities to the mix. With 2ya, you no longer have to worry about leaving the chat interface and switch to the Facebook app or the browser to search for something that you intend to share with your friends. Instead, the app itself presents you with a dedicated search and content discovery tool capable of helping you look for and share a variety of content including YouTube videos, nearby bars, clubs, restaurants, cafes & theaters, people, custom locations, movies and what not! Once your required item is found, you can share it with a mere swipe. Each category supported by 2ya offers extensive details, and the best part is that your recipient doesn’t even need to be running the 2ya client on their end to receive the shared information.
That’s right – 2ya is capable of sharing all the content with your recipients regardless of the Facebook chat client they’re using. However, if both recipient and sender are on 2ya, content sharing and discovery becomes even easier; otherwise, the recipient will have to make do with just the URLs of the shared content. Unfortunately, 2ya currently does not support group chat – a feature that we’d love to see included in the future updates. For now though, you’ll have to share the information with others individually.
Other than that, the app impresses with pretty much everything it has on the menu. Once you authorize 2ya to access your Facebook account, you can begin chatting with your online friends. The app’s messaging interface is undoubtedly one of its most impressive features, offering you a very intuitive way to share text messages as well as other content of interest.
As mentioned earlier, you aren’t even required to leave the app in order to search for the desired content; just hit the search button at the bottom-right to launch the app’s content exploration menu, supplemented with the search bar. Rotating the dial, you can easily switch between various categories supported by 2ya. With the help of the search bar, you can search across the currently selected category for the required stuff. For instance if you want to share a movie title with a friend, just select Movies from the dial and you’ll be able to search for the movie on the web.
To help you easily find the items of interest, 2ya offers various context-aware sub-menus under each category. The Movies menu helps finding popular movies, nearby theaters and movie titles by genre. The YouTube menu allows browsing featured, trending, top rated and most viewed videos on the popular video hosting network. Restaurants can be searched by cuisines or nearby food sports, whereas for locations, 2ya lets you request location of the recipient, share your own location with them, or edit your current place. Unlike the iOS variant, the Android version of 2ya doesn’t seem to support local media sharing for some inexplicable reason, which is a massive oversight on the developer’s part.
Now comes the sharing part; once you’ve found what you’re looking for, you can either share it instantly with a quick swipe, or view its details before you do so. For amenities, the app offers contact details, directions, images, user reviews and other information powered by Google. Similarly, for movies, you get to see star ratings, trailers, star cast & other credits, showtimes and relevant websites etc. In addition, you can make reservations for your favorite points of interest and order movie tickets right from the app.
As with any quality chat client, 2ya maintains history of your conversations, and integrates seamlessly with any affiliated apps and various online services. In short, 2ya is the way to go if you’re in search of a Facebook chat client with native online search and content exploration features.
2ya is available for free on both Google Play Store and iTunes App Store. Before heading over to the app’s download link, check out the demo video provided below.
Really enjoy using this app!