Did you know that the Zoom app was never meant to be a social network? However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most people are using the app to connect with family and friends.
Facebook launched Messenger Rooms, its new group video chat service globally. It is a free alternative in the video conferencing space that supports video calls with up to 50 participants with no time limit on call length. This feature takes advantage of the spike in video usage across services. Facebook plans to use growth tactics that it used to push Facebook and Instagram Live into everyone’s feeds.
Messenger Rooms is a drop-in video chat in which Facebook will alert you via a new section in the news feed or push a notification to certain friends when a friend using the feature creates a room. Soon, users will be able to join and initiate calls via Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, and Portal.
As of now, users can make a call from Messenger or the Facebook app and send out invites to users, even to non- Facebook users.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO- Facebook, in the latest earning call said that time on group chats had increased 1000% in recent weeks. However, with the app’s social grounding and lack of screen sharing ability, it is less likely to be used by enterprises and infringe on Zoom’s business.
With Messenger Rooms, Facebook is aiming to create a great and scalable alternative and compete with other platforms like TikTok and Zoom, which are doing exceptionally well in recent months.
Here are some of the images that Facebook released:
