“More and more people use messaging in groups for lots of different reasons like keeping everyone up to date, planning a family vacation or to share a few jokes. With 245 million people making video calls in Messenger every month, now we’re bringing everyone on Messenger the ability to turn group chats into face-to-face conversations no matter where you are – whether you’re down the street or halfway across the world,” said Stephane Taine, Product Manager for Facebook Messenger in a post.
To make a group video call, all you need to do is download the latest version of the Messenger and then go to any group conversation inside the app. Tap on the video icon on the upper right side of the screen, and it will start the video chat with everyone in the group being asked to join in on the call. It is also possible to ring just a few people in the group, or the entire group at the same time.
Since the video chat allows up to 50 speakers, just the dominant speaker is shown to all participants once the group has more than 6 people on the call. Users will also be able to wear virtual 3D masks on their faces during the video call (only available to iOS for now).
“This is the time of year to tell our friends and family how much we care about them and send best wishes for the year ahead. We’re delighted to bring you the ability to chat face-to-face with those who matter to you most, wherever they are. We look forward to hearing what you think,” Taine added in the post.
Facebook has come out with a lot of new features for the Messenger app this year including ‘Secret Conversations’, which brings end-to-end encryption which has disappearing messages with a fixed time limit that the user can decide. Facebook also introduced new games for the app including Pac-Man, basketball and football that users can play against their friends.
