Social media is at the very centre of connecting people and various applications have gained prime time in the spotlight for allowing groups of people to interact via voice and video. The latter has grabbed most of the attention as video conferencing has proved to be useful for a number of both personal and work related activities. In a time where isolation is felt by all, interacting and connecting with one another is more important than ever. I have used basic video calling over the last few weeks to stay in touch with loved ones and also to carry out work related meetings where communication over a face to face was required.
Facebook have been watching the state of social interactions during the pandemic and have decided to jump into the world of video with emphasis on a few new updates across all their products. WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger are all getting tweaks and updates. One of the bigger standouts here is the messenger room’s update that is aimed at allowing users to create instant video chat rooms using a simple invite link system. Simplicity is important when building an app for the masses, I wasn’t so impressed with their latest update to IGTV but the messenger rooms feature is certainly a different way to use the chat system, especially considering it will allow up to 50 people at once. Facebook live streams will also get a lick of fresh paint with similar features of co-streaming with other people as see on Instagram. I did notice a new video all feature for their dating platform but have not looked into this much.
A feature that caught my out of their announcement video was the arrival of going live on a page. Pages are used as groups for people to share and also for businesses to interact with their user bases. Live streaming from a page may be yet another useful tool for pages to communicate with many users at once. WhatsApp also gets an expanded video/voice call with up to 8 people now. Many users are still using Facebook’s products and these updates will most likely see use and it will be interesting if they are able to steal some thunder from HouseParty and Zoom. I did notice that Facebook have been a little quiet on the VR front. Considering that they own Oculus, I expect some news in the near feature around their immersive world project that has been a little quiet recently.
Announcement tweet here:
https://twitter.com/Facebook/status/1253756821526863872
- Facebook
Lockhart Tech Blogs
