WhatsApp was born as a straightforward app with no gimmicks whatsoever. But things eventually changed after Facebook acquired it.
Facebook that was later renamed to Meta, has tons of resources working behind its back, and improvement is the only way to go.
The thing is, the improvements go beyond founder Jan Koum's intention, in which the company is adding more and more features, derailing it from its original form.
But regardless, that is what people want.
And what Meta is doing here, is deliver.
And this time, the biggest change to the popular messaging app, is called 'Communities'.
Today we’re very excited to share our vision for a feature we’re calling WhatsApp Communities. This is new functionality we’re building to support the many organizations that use WhatsApp to communicate in a private and secure way. pic.twitter.com/LxEccdgJq8
— Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) April 14, 2022
According to a press release, Communities on WhatsApp focuses on organizations like schools, local clubs, and non-profit organizations.
"Communities on WhatsApp will enable people to bring together separate groups under one umbrella to better organize conversations."
Communities on WhatsApp allow people to bring together separate groups under one umbrella with a structure that works for them.
Another way of saying it, Communities lets users to easily organize smaller discussion groups on what matters to them.
Following competitors, WhatsApp is making Communities have new tools for admins, including announcement messages that are sent to everyone and control over which groups can be included.
With that said, existing group chats are also seeing tweaks and revamps.
Improvements include:
- Reactions: WhatsApp adds Emoji reactions so people can quickly share their opinion without flooding chats with new messages.
- Admin Delete: Group admins can remove errant or problematic messages from everyone’s chats.
- File Sharing: WhatsApp is increasing file sharing to support files up to 2GB so people can easily collaborate on projects.
- Larger Voice Calls: WhatsApp introduces one-tap voice calling for up to 32 people with all-new design.
Because WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, Communities are "inherently private."
On top of that, WhatsApp also said that it won’t be offering a way to search for communities on the messaging service. Phone numbers will also be hidden from the community at large, and only be visible to community admins and others in the same group as the user.
WhatsApp said that the announcement marks the "early days for Communities" on the app, "and building the new features to support them will be a major focus of ours for the year to come."
What this means, the Communities feature is a work in progress, and should become more complex and powerful at the same time.
