With all of us locked down due to novel coronavirus, we rely on video conferencing to interact with our friends and family while trying to maintain our sanity in these dark times.?
However, in case you have a larger group that won¡¯t fit on your regular WhatsApp call (since it has a limit of just 8 people on a call), you have to rely on apps like Zoom which surely offer a better participant count, but lacks the privacy we all want.?
Also, it can be a pain to ask technologically-challenged family members to sign up to a new platform, and spend half the time explaining to them what to do -- that can get really cumbersome.
However, it looks like WhatsApp is going to help us bridge this gap, sort of.
A recent report by renowned leakster WABetaInfo has spotted integration for Messenger rooms in a WhatsApp Web Beta as well as WhatsApp¡¯s Android App.?
In case you didn¡¯t know, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and we¡¯ve already seen Facebook and WhatsApp integrate some of its features (like for sharing FB content on WhatsApp), so this shouldn¡¯t really be surprising.
Messenger Rooms was launched last month which added the ability to call 50 people simultaneously, to compete with the likes of Zoom.?
In this particular leak, WABetaInfo has spotted a shortcut in the ¡®Attach¡¯ dropdown. Upon clicking on the shortcut, the screen takes you directly to the Messenger Rooms app window. Here it will be asked to create a room from WhatsApp or head to Messenger Rooms to create room there. Upon creation of the room the host of the call gets the ability to share a link for others to join.
Sure, this doesn¡¯t mean that WhatsApp has the feature yet, as it is going to tag along with Messenger Rooms, yet it is cool to have the ability through WhatsApp rather than rely on Zoom or other third-party apps.?
Another thing to note is that this beta isn¡¯t out for everyone yet and we don¡¯t really know when we¡¯ll get to see it, but we hope it is soon.