Facebook announced Thursday, the new video chat app, Messenger Rooms, that allows up to 50 people to chat on video with no time limit is now available to everyone on both mobile and desktop. The expanded version of the existing Facebook Messenger’s video calling function is accessible on both the main Facebook app and the dedicated Messenger.
Now Facebook is giving us an option to create a room in Messenger that you can do by just tapping over the ‘People’ section and you will be able to set various titles like ‘happy hour’ or ‘hanging out’ etc. This option is also available from the top of the Facebook News Feed in the main app.
You can also share the link of the room invitation with anyone on your friend’s list so that they will be able to get into it. If you choose to share the link with your entire friend list, it will show at the top of the news feed so that everyone can access it. Facebook is currently promoting the product by popping out ‘Hi’ from the various friend’s faces at the top of the screen. If you hit on the message, a chat room will be created between you and the friend.
Facebook says you can decide who to join and to be removed and set limits on it. Anyone can join the chat even if they don’t have a Facebook account. You will be able to share the chat rooms with anyone through News Feed, Groups and Events
Facebook is not going to do end-to-end encrypt calls, as it does on WhatsApp, but it says it will not view or listen to calls, just as it doesn’t do on Messenger. The company is also advising users to report rooms where illicit behavior is noticed.
It is all happening amid various players taking charge of chat video applications such as Zoom who took a big lead in Covid-19 locked down season while Google has revamped Hangouts Meet application to Google Meet that made it suitable for enterprise teleconferencing.
1 Comment