On Thursday, the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new WhatsApp feature which is to be called “Communities”. The feature is designed and added to the messaging application precisely for the groups of individuals sharing similar goals. The latest update is to entertain people from the same workplace environment or the ones having a shared professional work setup, a bunch of individuals who require a platform to discuss with each other.
Why Is Meta Introducing the New WhatsApp Feature?
WhatsApp shared its vision of creating a “Communities” feature that is to be beneficial for the people belonging to the same company, group, or organization. The idea behind this initiative is to provide separated groups with similar corporative and professional interests with a shared online platform like Slack. That will be used mostly for the office staff and management for communication, file sharing, and making the discussion easier.
According to the platform, it’s keen on focusing on the needs of people when it comes to online communication. Due to the pandemic, the term “work from home” has become a phrase used by almost every employee today. Every workplace either a club, non-profitable Org, or a big corporate sector requires a setup that can help its team to communicate and work together. Today, people use Slack, Microsoft Teams, Bitrix24, and other applications to collab with work associates. Thus, WhatsApp’s “communities” is a competitor of the rival software programs and apps.
Key Features of Communities
According to Meta, the new WhatsApp feature has some prominent advantages that will entertain the user big time while using the app for work purposes. It has added a trending feature of Instagram and Facebook i.e., reaction emojis to “Communities” for the people to react without sending a msg or a smiley. The admin control feature will allow the admins to remove certain inappropriate messages from the chats. On regular WhatsApp, the file-sharing size is limited to 64Mb but “communities” is offering up to 2Gbs. Only 8 participants can have a group call on the standard version of the app but the new feature has increased the limit up to 32 people. As per the tech giant, these four additional features are good for making professional chatrooms a better preference.
Why Not Upgrading WhatsApp Business?
The new WhatsApp Feature has introduced ways to enhance productivity but the platform already had an alternative “WhatsApp Business” which could have been utilized for the same purpose. Since the business version is also designed for the businesspersons to communicate with their staff, handle a greater number of people, and manage the business operations by keeping the group of people in loops. This is the concern of many WhatsApp users that adding communities to the features list is yet another confusing element just like it is with the business version. A lot of people only use to have a separate WhatsApp account for another phone number. The application has designed and presented many new updates including the View once feature and the policy updates but Communities seem to be something new in the stack of specs and features of WhatsApp. However, the productivity results will be unambiguous once the new feature will be available to use.
