14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook announced the launch of the group video chat feature for its highly popular application, Messenger. The announcement was made after Facebook added Snapchat-like features to its Messenger camera.
Facebook has stated that the group video chat feature will start rolling out on Android and iOS devices, as well as on the desktop version of Messenger, worldwide. The new feature was much needed considering that 245 million people place video calls in Messenger every month.
The new feature allows you to see up to 6 friends at a time during video chats, but up to 50 people can join in your conversation to listen, talk or just be on camera. When more than 6 people participate in the call, only the dominant speaker is shown.
Use fun 3D masks on Messenger for iOS
To enable video chat, you simply need to create a new group conversation or access an existing one. When you tap on the video icon on the upper right corner of the screen, everyone in the conversation will be notified. With just one tap, anyone from the group can join. You can directly ring only a few select people or the whole group, when you’ve got some exciting news to share with everyone.
Moreover, the new chat feature allows some editing tools for videos, and you can use fun 3D masks to make the conversation more interesting, but those are only available for the iOS Messenger version and will be coming to Android soon.
Group video chat is a feature popularized by Skype, but the number of participants is limited to just 10 in that app. The new Messenger feature allows up to 50 participants, which makes it one of the most robust group video chat services on the market. Messenger was recently updated with photo filters, masks and stickers to its camera, which will come in handy during group video chats.