IM

Facebook launching group audio calling on Messenger with support for up to 50 participants

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 21, 2016

A year after it rolled out the ability to place and receive VoIP audio calls on Messenger, Facebook is now introducing a new VoIP calling feature with support for up to fifty people on a single group call. Group calling currently supports standard VoIP audio calls, but Facebook did tell TechCrunch that “group video calling is definitely a use case that a lot of our people might be interested in at some point”.

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You can now attach Microsoft Office documents to your WhatsApp chats

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

After enabling complete end-to-end encryption for chats and adding support for sending and receiving PDFs and basic text styling, WhatsApp for iPhone in its most recent update brings the ability to attach Microsoft Office documents to your instant exchanges with friends on the service.

Although not mentioned in the official release notes accompanying the 59.1-megabyte app, the change was spotted this morning by the Italian blog iSpazio. This is a useful new feature for users that removes the need to convert Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents to the PDF format before attaching them to their WhatsApp conversations.

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Facebook Messenger gains Dropbox integration

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 12, 2017

As Facebook continues advancing its mobile Messenger app, the company just announced in a blog post that users can now take advantage of a brand new integration to share their Dropbox files from within the mobile Messenger app.

The new feature is accessible through the More button in Messenger chats, where Dropbox is now listed as an available source. Simply tap the new icon to open the Dropbox app on your device and select cloud files that you'd like to share in a chat.

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Facebook planning to add customer service chatbots and live chat to Messenger

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 8, 2016

Facebook is working hard to turn its Messenger app into a platform for doing all sorts of useful things beyond mere message exchange between friends.

According to a report Friday by TechCrunch, the company is planning on enabling developers to add customer service chatbots and live chat functionality to Messenger and has already introduced Live Chat APIs for Messenger.

A presentation give to select Messenger chatbot developers mentions something called “Structure Messages”, which are basically automated responses that may include a title, image, a description, a URL and calls to action such as visiting a website, viewing an e-commerce order or making a restaurant reservation.

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Facebook Messenger passes 900 million users, unveils profile codes and other new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

Facebook today announced its Messenger mobile application is now being used by more than 900 million people globally every month, up from 800 million active monthly users announced in January.

Celebrating the milestone, the social network firm unveiled Snapchat-like scannable profile codes.

In addition, it announced some interesting new ways for people to find businesses and friends to start a conversation, including vanity profile URLs on Messenger. More than a billion messages are now being sent every month between people on Messenger and businesses, wrote David Marcus, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging.

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Snapchat unveils stickers, video notes, Auto-Advance Stories & other chat improvements

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 29, 2016

Snapchat is rolling out a bunch of new capabilities destined for its second-generation chat feature, in addition to other improvements like stickers, all-new Auto-Advance Stories capability and updated privacy terms.

The Venice Beach-headquartered maker of the popular ephemeral messaging software has confirmed that more than 200 stickers are now available within the app, based on its $100 million purchase of Bitstrips.

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WhatsApp for iPhone gains enhanced in-app alerts

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 18, 2016

WhatsApp for iPhone was updated in the App Store earlier this morning, bringing out a few noteworthy improvements to in-app notifications.

In addition, you can now choose to save incoming media for specific chats in contact or group info while the ability to share PDF documents from other apps into WhatsApp has expanded to everyone.

WhatsApp no longer charges an annual subscription fee. The Facebook-owned firm's been hard at work testing a feature for exporting chats in a ZIP archive and is also prepping to finally roll out video calling in WhatsApp.

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Skype for Web adds support for making phone calls and other new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 14, 2016

You can now call mobile phones and landlines using Skype in a desktop browser, without needing a plug-in. Support for marking phone calls through a browser has been added to Skype Web, a web-based counterpart of the native Skype app, along with several other new features.

For instance, you can now add new people to a conversation, even if they’re not on Skype, enjoy watching YouTube videos without leaving Skype and more.

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WhatsApp now lets you share media from other apps like Dropbox and Google Drive

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 29, 2016

The popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp today received a pretty cool update in the App Store which adds the ability to share photos or videos from other apps installed on your iPhone via a new option exposed after tapping the Photo/Video Library button.

In addition, WhatsApp has gained a pair of new shortcuts in the 3D Touch menu on the Home screen and now supports solid colors as chat backgrounds.

Oh, and you can now zoom in on videos while they're playing.

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