WhatsApp Group Calling

WhatsApp Stickers, Group Calling Support Finally on Next Month


It's the first day of Facebook F8 developers' conference and, as expected, the world's biggest social network has made a bunch of announcements. Apart from some big Facebook features like Clear History and the upcoming Dating profiles within the Facebook app, CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg also announced a bunch of new features for other Facebook-owned services like WhatsApp, India's favourite messaging app. WhatsApp is getting support for group video calling, Zuckerberg announced during his opening keynote on Tuesday. The app will also get support for stickers "soon", the company later revealed via a blog post.

"Voice and video calling are very popular on WhatsApp, and we’re excited to share that group calling will be coming in the months ahead. Stickers are also coming to WhatsApp soon," the post said.

WhatsApp will support third-party stickers created by developers.

Zuckerberg also used the opportunity to reveal that WhatsApp's Status feature is being used by over 450 million people worldwide. WhatsApp for Business, the recently introduced service targeting business, already has 3 million users worldwide, the Facebook CEO said.

The company also revealed that over 2 billion minutes of video and voice calls made on WhatsApp every day.

Also See : Another Useful Feature For Group Admins is Restriction to edit group description

According to WABetaInfo, a popular fan site that tests new WhatsApp features early, you need to have the WhatsApp for Android beta version 2.18.132 in order to see the feature. Referred to as a Restricted Group feature, group administrators will be able to find it by navigating to Group info > Group settings > Edit group info. Here, users will be able to choose who can change the group's subject, icon, and description - with two choices 1) All participants or 2) Only admins. The new Group settings section is also where administrators can assign new group admins.

"All participants can normally edit the group description, icon and subject, but finally the administrator can restrict this feature today, preventing no-administrators to modify the group description," the website said.

To recall, the Group Description feature debuted on Android and Windows Phone back in February. It is also available on iPhone. However, both the iPhone and Windows Phone platforms currently have no option to restrict any user from editing the group description, icon, or subject. As we mentioned, however, WABetaInfo claims the feature is currently rolling out to iPhone and Windows Phone users as well, though none of the iPhone units we have had yet received the functionality.

The report adds that several other group features are expected to make their way to WhatsApp soon. In testing since November, and disabled by default, are other Restricted Group features - including the ability to block all participants from being able to Send messages - including group text messages, images, videos, GIFs, documents, voice messages - or even starting a new live location session. Administrators will be able to choose whether all participants or only admins have access to these features. A participant will be able to request the admin for the ability to post, using the Message admin button.