Telegram has proven time and time again that it is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to features and true to this, the number of Telegram users has grown steadily over the last few months. To widen the features gap, Telegram has released its 4.0 update and you should go ahead an update even before reading this article.
Telegram 4.0 brings:
Video Messages
This is just like voice messages but now with video maxed out at 1 minute long. Telegram compresses the videos and sends them as you record them to ensure that the conversation goes smoothly.
To send a video message, go to any chat on Telegram and tap the mic icon to switch to camera mode. Then tap and hold the camera icon and record your video message. When you’re done, just release the recording button and your video message is sent.
If you find holding down the recording button to be a lot of work, you can simply swipe up and the camera will lock on recording mode, but that means you will have to hit the send button to dispatch your video message.
Video messages are automatically downloaded and autoplayed by default, however you can change this in Settings if “you’re on a data diet”. The best thing is, the videos don’t get saved on your phone.
Telescope
Just when you thought Vine was dead, Telegram goes ahead an revives it and puts it on steroids. Telescope is a new platform that lives within Telegram. With Telescope, owners of public channels can send video messages to their fans instantly.
Telescope hosts autoplayed round videos of up to 1 minute in duration. And surprise surprise, you don’t need a Telegram account to view these videos on Telescope.
Every public channel on Telegram now has a telesco.pe URL, such as telesco.pe/techweez, where all of its video messages are available to the world. Whenever you post a video message to a public channel, it will also be uploaded to Telesco.pe and have a public URL there, which you can then share to other platforms.
Bot Payments
Have you ever wished your favourite fast food restaurant would have a Telegram bot and you could order directly from it? Or even better, your ISP would allow you to pay for the service via Telegram? Well, now you can.
Bot developers can now accept payments from their users around the world. Developers who have bots that offer services or allow users to shop online can now add a pay button and when users tap the button, they’ll be asked to fill in your credit card and shipping information and confirm the payment.
For those who don’t want to input their card details each time they want to make a purchase, you will have to enable two-step verification in order to save your card details within Telegram. Even better for iOS users, bot Payments also support Apple Pay.
Bot developers in Kenya, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda can set up bot payments via FlutterWave.
For those who want to try out how all this will work, Telegram has set up a dummy bot that sells time machines. Like seriously Telegram? Anyway, @ShopBot is the username. Developers, here’s the documentation on how to implement bot payment. Free idea: I want to be able to pay via m-pesa, make it happen!
Instant View for everyone
Instant view isn’t anything new, but the news here is, the platform is now adding support for thousands of websites. Instant view allows you to view a link shared to you without you opening a browser.
Developers have been encouraged to create templates for their favourite blogs and we wouldn’t mind if one of you decided to bless us with an instant view template. Here’s how to go about creating an instant view template, you need extensive knowledge in HTML and Telegram is running a $200,000 competition to award template creators.
