The greatest gift for an online company is an increasing number of users. The best gift for users of an online company, is more features.
Telegram is one popular privacy-oriented messaging service. After announcing that it has reached 400 million monthly users, or up from 300 million a year ago, it went along with the celebration to make several announcements.
"When we started Telegram 7 years ago, we assumed that people will always choose freedom and quality over restrictions and mediocrity. As the gap in popularity between Telegram and its older competitors narrows, we find more and more validity in that original assumption. Thank you for being smart and free!"
With social distancing and lockdown in many countries due to the coronavirus pandemic, messaging apps have become increasingly popular. And Telegram here is benefiting from the trend.
To celebrate its milestone, the privacy-oriented messaging app showcased how its quizzes feature that was introduced earlier this 2020 has "witnessed a surge of more serious educational tests and quizzes".
This time, Telegram is making it possible to add educational features to these quizzes.
After a quiz question is answered, Telegram is making it possible to display a message explaining the correct answer, with the goal of not only testing, but also to spread knowledge.
Taking this further, Telegram is also offering up to €400,000 to creators of original educational tests in this coronavirus pandemic.
"With 2 billion students currently away from schools, the world is in dire need of online educational tools. We’d like to contribute to solving this problem by creating a database of educational tests for all subjects and levels," said Telegram, adding that "we will publish the quizzes you submit in a searchable directory. Based on their quality and popularity we will then announce the winners in several stages."
Telegram is also adding a searchable sticker directory, making it easier for users to find the over 20,000 stickers available, both static and animated.
And just the dice roller sticker added earlier this 2020, Telegram is adding a dart-throwing sticker that shows up when users use the respective emoji.
This allows users to compete with their friends to see who hits the bullseye first.
Going beyond that, Telegram has redesigned the Attachment menu on its Android app.
The redesign puts all attachment types open in a popup layer, rather than using a fullscreen experience. Telegram also shortens the animation that plays when users switch tabs.
And as for Telegram for macOS, shared media can be shown directly in the profile page. Telegram also adds a new sidebar for chat folders, and features a new photo editor that allows users to doodle things before sending a picture.
And for last, the highlight of Telegram's announcement would be the secure group video calls, which is planned to be released later this 2020.
With more people staying at home during the pandemic, many online services have benefited from the trend. Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, and more are experiencing a huge surge in usage.
Zoom in particular, added more video-conferencing users in the first few months of 2020 than in all of 2019, thanks to coronavirus
The trend has even lured Facebook out to announce Messenger Rooms.
And here, Telegram too wants a bit of the pie.
The feature has been long-requested, and the coronavirus pandemic is probably the best time for Telegram to at least make the announcement in order to make users stick around.