Whatsapp Group Can Now Have 1024 Members; New Communities Feature Launched

WhatsApp users can now enjoy a brand new feature- Communities.

Objective

This provides a way to organize multiple group chats so that the discussion in individual groups remains focused on its own topic, but members can easily switch between topics.

This is designed in order to help organizations, clubs, schools and other private groups better communicate and stay organized.

For example, a user can create a community for their neighborhood, then divide discussion into individual groups – one for group activities, one for organizing chores, etc.

Other notable features

Each Community also has an Announcement group for moderators to share major news.

Other new features to Communities include admin controls, support for sub-groups and announcement groups, 32-person voice and video calls, larger-file sharing, emoji reactions and polls.

WhatsApp is rolling out further changes that will make Communities (but also regular group chats) more useful.

Maximum number of participants increased

As it promised earlier, the maximum number of participants in a group has been raised to 1,024 (up from 512).

For video calls, the max is 32 participants.

Users are pampered on this particular day, since the app has now added the feature of in-chat polls.

As the name suggests, a group or community can vote on an issue without having to resort to third-party services.

Privacy

And just like regular WhatsApp chats, Community groups are end-to-end encrypted ensuring privacy.

This is something WhatsApp has highlighted, saying it is “aiming to raise the bar for how organizations communicate with a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else.”

“The alternatives available today require trusting apps or software companies with a copy of their messages – and we think they deserve the higher level of security provided by end-to-end encryption,” it said.

Users can see the new feature with the latest WhatsApp version where there will appear a new Communities tab (on top of the screen on Android, bottom on iOS).

Personalised invite required for entry

One crucial point to note is that unlike Facebook Groups, which can be discoverable on the platform, WhatsApp Communities are hidden.

This means there will be no search and discovery feature available since the user has to be invited to join by the admin of the group,

The Communities feature was developed following feedback from 50 organizations in 15 countries to ensure the feature meets their needs.

Taking on competition

The dev team has promised to keep working on it and adding new features “in the coming months”, so you can submit your feedback too.

The Communities feature may allow the messaging app to take on other apps that have grown popular for private and large group communications, including Telegram and Signal.