WhatsApp is preparing to launch a new feature to create maxi chats of multiple groups: what are they for and who can use Communities
A new and unprecedented feature is coming to the popular messaging app WhatsApp and is called Communities. The new feature is aimed at group administrators, who will be able to create maxi chats between all users who follow different groups.
This is a highly anticipated feature, because even though it's not a social network, it will allow you to create communities directly in the chat app. The big advantage for administrators will be to be able to send messages to multiple groups simultaneously that are part of the community. Reporting the upcoming news is the site WABetaInfo, which points out how this new tool could also prove useful for schools: think of an administrator forming a Community on his degree course, where there are all the classes of the different subjects taught as a single group and students. The communication of moving schedules, courses or exams would be much easier and immediate. So here is what is Community of WhatsApp, how it works and to whom it is addressed.
WhatsApp Community: what is it and what is it for
Community is the new feature of WhatsApp coming in the next few months that is designed to create a kind of large "group of groups". As explained by the site WABetaInfo, this new feature will allow you to create communities of users, united by a common interest, directly in the messaging app and without the need to resort to social networks.
To distinguish normal chats, groups and Communities, a special icon will be used, which may have a square shape with rounded corners. This feature can be useful to manage large groups of people with common interests, or to manage the Communities of a brand that is associated with a WhatsApp business account.
WhatsApp Community: how it works
This new tool designed by WhatsApp allows you to start a maxi group chat, ensuring security as usual thanks to the protection of end-to-end encryption. Administrators of one or more groups will be able to create Communities, where they will be able to send messages, add new groups as the community grows, and invite individual users to participate, either manually or by sending a link.
The features introduced with Community could then be expanded, while it's not yet clear what features individual users participating in the community will be able to take advantage of. As WABetaInfo points out, to find out, we'll have to wait until we can see the first beta version of Community.
WhatsApp Community: when it arrives
At the moment, the new feature is still under development and we'll have to wait a little longer to see the first betas, which will give additional information about what Community allows users to do. What is certain is that the new feature will be made available for both Android and iOS users.