Back in the day, if you wanted to do anything besides call another party one-to-one, you had to have all sorts of technical wizardry set up – and the knowledge of how to use it.
We’re obviously in a new age, and now ‘civilians’ are starting to get access to the technologies that were previously only available from a desktop phone or a call center; specifically, group calling.
Facebook (News - Alert) announced this week that the Messenger app will now support group calls for every user. This feature was announced on Wednesday by Facebook head of messaging products David Marcus (News - Alert) and has now rolled out to every user. In order to access it, you’ll need to update to the latest version of the Messenger app for the group-calling feature to work.
According to the company, it’s a fairly simple process: To initiate a group call, you simply have to tap on the phone icon in a group conversation. After initiating the group call, you can manage the individual participants. If you miss the group call and it is still in progress, then you can tap on the Phone (News - Alert) icon within the group chat to join.
“Facebook will likely launch group video chats at some point to stay competitive against other messaging apps,” the company said in a statement. “Facebook Messenger currently has 900 million monthly active users and many of them are clamoring for a group video chat feature. During the group call, the Messenger app will display the group name and the list of the participating users. Users that are invited to the call can accept or decline it. This feature can be useful for calling multiple family members, friends and business contacts at the same time.”
Edited by Stefania Viscusi