Telegram continues to develop very interesting new features for its app: if before it aimed to overtake WhatsApp now the goal seems to be even higher
For a few months now, Telegram's development team has literally put in turbo: at the beginning of August came the latest stable version, the one with the "Video Messages 2.0" up to 1.
The app of Pavel Durov, in fact, after having surpassed WhatsApp for functionality, now could even aim to challenge Facebook thanks to a really strong novelty: the ability to scroll with a single swipe all the new messages published in all channels to which the user is subscribed. The scroll in the channels, therefore, becomes infinite and all channels are grouped together and managed in a completely different way than before. It doesn't take much to understand that, organized this way, Telegram's channel feed becomes a very interesting alternative to Facebook's feed. Especially since, within the channels, you can now also launch live video chats to converse with subscribers.
Telegram beta 8.0.0: the channels
Let's start by illustrating the new features to the channels, which are the biggest but not the only ones announced by the Telegram beta. Channels are now grouped in a special feed, and when the user finishes reading the last message in a channel, an icon appears, but only if there are other messages still unread in other channels.
If the user taps on the icon, he automatically switches to the next channel to read those messages. Then he goes to the next one, then to the next one until he reads all messages in all channels. If, in the meantime, some channel has posted more messages, then it starts again. Potentially indefinitely, if the user is subscribed to a large number of channels.
All this looks very much like the Facebook feed, but it only affects channels that, on Telegram can be equated to Facebook pages. At the moment, the display of new messages of the channels is not managed by an algorithm but it is linear and this is a huge incentive for companies to open a Telegram channel because when the new feed will arrive to all Telegram users to be seen on this platform will be much easier.
But not only that: always on the channels come also live video chats, previously reserved for groups, with the possibility of sharing the screen. Also this is a novelty that companies will be able to exploit a lot for marketing purposes.
Telegram beta 8.0.0: the other novelties
In comparison to those already described, the other novelties brought by the beta version 8.0.0 of Telegram seem minor, even if they are not so small. For example, the possibility of applying gradient colors to graphic themes, even to the boxes that surround the text of the chats.
It is also possible to delete the data of those who sent a message that we want to forward. Also arrives the suggestions to choose stickers, whose section also receives a design tweak.