Facebook Messenger wants to be the only platform for you to chat with your friends and that is why they have taken an offensive on Skype over time by introducing video calling and also audio calling. Skype has retaliated by introducing a slew of updates like Mojis, Translator, Video filters and others but that has not slowed Messenger from introducing new features too.
The new feature in question that was announced by David Marcus, Facebook’s VP of Messaging products. In this post, he was excited to announce Group calling on Messenger. As you know in most popular chatting platforms, there is the provision to call someone on the app but it is only for one-on-one chats. Some people might want to make a group call while on the chatting app and this feature will allow them to do so.
So how do you initiate a group call? David Marcus explained how you will be able to do that:
From any group conversations, just tap on the phone icon to initiate the group call. You can then manage individual participants on the next seen. If you have the latest version of Messenger, you should see the phone icon appear in group conversations within the next 24 hours.
Unlike other Facebook features, this fortunately will be rolled out globally to all users. According to Venture Beat, Facebook pointed out that upto 50 people can be on the same call at the same time. As Messenger rolls this feature to its 900 million strong user base, we have to wait and see what impact it will have and specifically to the traditional telcos who offer voice services.
