WhatsApp on Thursday announced Communities as a new feature that will help users create multiple groups at once under one roof. The announcement comes months after the feature was spotted during testing on the web. Communities on WhatsApp will enable admins with new tools, including the ability to send a message to everyone and control which groups can be included in a particular community. In addition to the community feature, WhatsApp introduced a list of updates, including file sharing limits, React and the ability to enable group audio calls for up to 32 people simultaneously.
for the past few months, WhatsApp apparently done test characteristic of communities. This will enable users to have different groups under one roof to receive updates from these groups from the same screen – without having to scroll through different chats. This would be especially helpful in the case of schools, local clubs or non-profit organizations that need to deal with multiple groups on the app.
Users of a community will be able to see its details and all the groups that are part of it. However, it will not allow users of a particular group to see the phone numbers of people available in other groups. However, they will see the number of members available in their groups. Admins will also, of course, be able to see the phone numbers of all group members.
Additionally, users in a group will not be able to see conversations taking place in other groups, although they will have the option to join other groups in their community.
Administrators will also have new tools to better manage group discussions in their communities. One of the tools will be an announcement message that admins can send to everyone. Group administrators will also have control over which groups can be included in their communities.
“We think the community will make it easier for school principals to share reading updates and set up groups about specific classes, extra-curricular activities or volunteer needs for all parents of the school together,” said WhatsApp said In a blog post.
The main objective of Communities is to enable people to easily organize small discussion groups on the platform which can make WhatsApp a useful solution for group discussions as well. It will also help to differentiate the important groups from any of them Irregular Family groups where they mostly get “good morning” messages or some casual stuff.
Users in communities will have the option to report abuse, block, drop accounts, and leave any of them – just like they are open to doing all such things in regular groups. WhatsApp also promised to continue protecting messages in communities with its end-to-end encryption.
This feature will protect user privacy by hiding phone numbers from the community at large. WhatsApp noted that there will also be “sensible limits on size, searchability and forwarding”. detailed document About community facility
“We will rely on all available unencrypted information, including community names, descriptions and user reports, to take action against abuse in the community,” the company said.
There is no concrete timeline on when the communities will be available to users around the world. However, WhatsApp told Gadgets 360 that it will be testing the feature in a few countries over the next few months and once those tests are complete, it will start rolling it out globally.
In addition to communities, groups on WhatsApp are getting emoji reactions to help people share their opinions about particular messages without flooding chats with new text inputs. It works the same way as how you can add responses to messages on Facebook’s Messenger or Apple’s iMessage.
WhatsApp is enhancing the user experience with features including emoji reactions
photo credit: whatsapp
whatsapp is done test responses For some time. new addition recently Appeared to some beta testers on Android.
Emoji reactions will be available in both individual chats and groups, WhatsApp confirmed to Gadgets 360.
Individually, group admins will be able to remove inappropriate or disturbing messages from everyone’s chats. WhatsApp is also offering one-tap voice calling with a new design for up to 32 people. Currently, it allows up to eight participants In group voice call.
WhatsApp is bringing a new design for group audio calls
photo credit: whatsapp
whatsapp competitor wireHowever, there is no limit for group voice chat. It also enabled users last year Over 1,000 Viewers Its for group video calls, however you can have up to 30 simultaneous members in a video call on the app.
Additionally, WhatsApp is increasing the file sharing size to support files up to 2GB. This is a significant extension from the current file size. 100 MB. limit of, The increased file sharing size limit will apply to both individual chats and groups. this is done in test For some time.
It is important to mention that the update will be limited to documents and will not apply to media files including photos, videos and voice messages as they will still have the current 16MB limit. Also, the increased limit is the same as the 2GB file sharing size limit available on telegram.
WhatsApp said that all of these new features will roll out in the coming weeks – before Communities arrives.