Due to the current lockdown, video calling software is hugely popular at the moment, with Zoom the main beneficiary. Now Facebook wants a piece of the video calling market, and has introduced a new service called Messenger Rooms.
Facebook Messenger Rooms are joinable group video calls allowing users to hang out with up to 50 people.
Users can expect to easily discover and join rooms, control who joins and sees the room and even use exploit augmented reality filters, backgrounds and lighting.
When you set up a new Messenger Room call, a notification will pop up on your friends’ and followers’ home page, so they can immediately jump in and join the call.Â
Soon you’ll be able to have group voice and video calls with up to eight people on WhatsApp. As before, these calls are secured with end-to-end encryption so no one else can view or listen to your private conversation, not even WhatsApp.
Facebook has also reinstated the Live With feature for livestream broadcasts, where two people can join in on one livestream. The feature was cut in November as it didn’t add enough “value”, according to Facebook at the time.
John Hegeman, vice president of news feed for Facebook, said the company wanted to recreate the “serendipity” that happens in the physical world, something he claimed video-conferencing competitors did not do.
“In the physical world, you have the ability to bump into people… so, we’re hopeful that some of that serendipity will be able to occur in this product,”
Rooms can be created via Facebook or Messenger, and the company said it planned to add the feature to Instagram, WhatsApp, and its Portal video-calling devices “soon”.
People creating a Messenger Room will be able to keep their room private, block unwanted participants and send invitations to people who are not on Facebook.
Participants will be able to use augmented reality filters and change their background in real-time.
Publicly discoverable rooms will be listed at the top of the Facebook news feed.
