The American-based messaging platform, WhatsApp launch new features to ease communication for its cross-platform users.
Announcing the promising features on Thursday, internet entrepreneur and business magnate, Mark Zuckerberg, said the platform, since its inception, has been focused on improving user experience.
One of the major features added to the platform is the expansion in the size of group video calls to accommodate 32 people and allow users to carry out polls in group chats.
Zuckerberg noted that WhatsApp has now increased the group size to 1024 from 512. He said: “Today, we are excited to share our vision for a new feature we are adding to WhatsApp called Communities. Since WhatsApp launched in 2009, we’ve been focused on how we can help people have the next best thing to an in-person conversation when they want to talk to an individual or a group of friends or family.”
The 38-year-old tech expert added that the platform frequently hears from people using WhatsApp to communicate and coordinate within a community.
The communities feature changes in admin controls and introduce support for sub-groups and announcement groups.
The feature, according to Zuckerberg, will also allow 32-person voice and video calls, more extensive file sharing, emoji reactions, and polls. When the feature is launched, admins of existing group chats will be able to transition their group to ‘Communities’ or opt to re-create their group as a ‘Community’.
Mr Zuckerberg noted that the encryption aspects of the ‘Communities’ feature were to “raise the bar for how organisations communicate with a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else.”
