Facebook Inc. is taking video-calling to a whole new level as it gears to roll out a slew of new video-calling features including Messenger Rooms, which will accommodate up to 50 people in an invitation-based video-group chat, the company announced on Friday.
“Create a room right from Messenger or Facebook, and invite anyone to join your video call, even if they don’t have a Facebook account,” said the company in a statement adding that they can “start and share rooms on Facebook through News Feed, Groups and Events, so it’s easy for people to drop by.”
In a Facebook Live broadcast, Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg defined the products as his company’s effort to address the current reality of maintaining social distance. He said, “we’re going to be dealing with this for quite some time to come.”
Currently, all major tech giants including Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft offer video-calling service in their respective forms. But among all, it seems like Facebook is going to be the first to adapt to the pandemic crisis.
Zuckerberg said the technology behind the concept is all the same but the overall experience is going to be different.
Reports suggest, the company initially is planning to launch its Messenger Rooms with the smaller limit but it will soon increase participants numbers to 50.
Messenger Rooms’ competitor Zoom allows 100 people to participate in a group video chat for free for up to 40 minutes. Whereas, all calls on Messenger Rooms have no time limit. In fact, it will include features like augmented reality filters, the room admin or the host will be able to lock the calls and remove users.
April from all above, Facebook also announced that soon users will be able to have group voice and video calls with up to eight people on WhatsApp. Earlier, the number of callers on WhatsApp calls was limited to only four people.
The company added that it will also expand its live streaming features on Facebook and Instagram.