HIGHLIGHTS
- Multiple groups will be housed under one roof in WhatsApp Communities.
- For some time, the functionality has been in testing.
- WhatsApp is raising the file-sharing limit to 2GB.
WhatsApp unveiled Communities on Thursday as a new feature that would allow users to have many groups under one roof. The news comes months after the functionality was identified in Web testing. Communities on WhatsApp will provide administrators additional options, such as the ability to send a single message to everyone and control over which groups may be included in a certain community. In addition to the Communities feature, WhatsApp released a slew of new improvements, including an increased file sharing limit, responses, and the option to allow group audio conversations for up to 32 individuals at the same time.
WhatsApp appears to have been testing the Communities feature for the previous few months. It will allow users to have distinct groups under one roof and receive updates from these groups from a single screen — without having to wade through numerous conversations. This will be especially useful for schools, community clubs, and non-profit organizations that must interact with different groups on the app.
Users in a Community will be able to see the Community's description as well as all of the groups that are a part of it. It will not, however, allow members in one group to view the phone numbers of persons in other groups. They will, however, be able to view the amount of people accessible in their groups. Administrators will, of course, be able to see the phone numbers of all group members.
Furthermore, members in one group will not be able to observe talks in other groups, however they will have the option to join other groups in their Community.
Administrators will also have additional tools to help them better manage group conversations in their Communities. The announcement messages that admins will be able to send to everyone will be one of the tools. Group administrators will also be able to choose which groups can be included in their Communities.
"We believe Communities will make it simpler for a school principal to gather all of the parents of the school to discuss must-read notifications and establish up groups regarding certain subjects, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs," WhatsApp wrote in a blog post.
The primary goal of Communities appears to be to allow individuals to quickly organize smaller discussion groups on the platform, which might make WhatsApp an even more effective alternative for group conversations. It would also assist distinguish essential groups from their random family groups, where they usually get "Good morning" texts or other informal stuff.
Users in Communities will be able to report abuse, block accounts, and quit any of them, just as they are able to do in ordinary groups. WhatsApp has vowed to continue using end-to-end encryption to secure communications in Communities.
"To take action against abuse in Communities, we will depend on all accessible unencrypted information, including the Community name, description, and user reports," the business added.
There is no set date for when Communities will be available to people worldwide. WhatsApp, on the other hand, informed Gadgets 360 that it would be testing the feature in a select countries over the next several months, and that after the tests were through, it will begin to roll it out internationally.
Along with Communities, WhatsApp groups are gaining emoji replies to enable members share their thoughts on specific messages without overwhelming chats with fresh text inputs. This works in the same way that you can add reactions to messages in Facebook Messenger or Apple iMessage.
For some time, WhatsApp has been testing reactions. The new feature was also recently made available to certain Android beta testers.
Separately, group administrators will be able to delete erroneous or inappropriate messages from everyone's conversations. With an entirely new interface, WhatsApp is also enabling one-tap voice calling for up to 32 people. A group phone call may currently have up to eight participants.
Telegram, WhatsApp's rival, does not have a limit on group voice conversations. It also allowed users to have up to 1,000 viewers for its group video conversations last year, albeit you can only have up to 30 individuals in a video conference on the app at the same time.
Furthermore, WhatsApp is expanding the file sharing size to allow files of up to 2GB. This is a huge increase above the current file size limit of 100MB. The higher file sharing size restriction will apply to both solo and group conversations. It's been in testing for a while.
It is crucial to note that the upgrade will only apply to documents and will not apply to media items like as photographs, videos, and voice messages, which will continue to have a 16MB restriction. Furthermore, the new restriction is comparable to Telegram's 2GB file sharing size limit. WhatsApp stated that all of these new capabilities would be available in the next weeks, prior to the launch of Communities.
