Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The “WhatsApp” application revealed details of its vision for a new feature called “communities” that will enable users to combine separate groups under one umbrella and within a structure that works for them.
This way people can receive updates sent to their community and easily organize small discussion groups on what matters to them. The Communities feature will also contain powerful new tools for admins, including posting messages that are sent to everyone and controlling which groups can be included.
The application indicated, in a statement that CNN received a copy of it in Arabic, that the “Communities” feature will make it easier for the school principal to bring all parents together to share updates that need to be seen and create groups regarding specific classes, extracurricular events, or volunteer work needs.
More updates will also be made regarding how groups work on WhatsApp, whether they are part of a community or not. This will help users interact in new ways and reduce overloading of large conversations. And WhatsApp indicated that these features will be available in the coming weeks so that users can try them even before the “Communities” feature is launched.
– reactions: Emojis will be made available in WhatsApp so that people can quickly share their opinions without flooding conversations with new messages.
– Scan feature for group admins: Group admins will be able to remove problematic messages from all conversations.
– File sharing: The file sharing capacity will be increased to 2GB, so that users can easily collaborate on projects.
– Support for big calls: There will be one-click voice calls for up to 32 people in a whole new way.
By their nature, “communities” will preserve users’ privacy, as messages are fully protected and encrypted. The application indicated that the main focus in the coming year is to provide new features that support communities.