People are no longer required to have a Facebook account to join Messenger

Facebook just made a big play to get more users to sign up for its chat product, Messenger: It's no longer requiring people to have a Facebook account to join.

In the US, Canda, Peru, or Venezuela, users can now sign up with a phone number, name, and photo alone.

Messenger's becoming an increasingly important product for Facebook. It's been regularly adding new features to the app, like peer-to-peer payments and the ability for third-party software developers to create apps to run inside it.

The app added 100 million new users in only three months, bringing it to more than 700 million users, the company announced in June.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company believes in waiting until its products hit 1 billion users before focusing on turning them into meaningful businesses.

This change could create another spike in user sign-ups, and bring Messenger closer to that magic "1 billion" landmark.