It was about a month back that Facebook announced its plans of introducing a video calling feature in its Messenger app and seems like they wanted to come up with it without any delay at all. Reports pouring in point out that the Menlo Park-based social networking giant has already started rolling out the feature through updates across all the platforms.
Few believe that coming up with Messenger was the right move for Facebook as over the years Messenger has shaped up into a distinguishable product, one that has its own presence even outside the main Facebook app, allowing people to express themselves comfortably and immediately. The fact that it allows people to add emoji and stickers, gives it an edge over other similar apps, which are trying to replicate its success story by offering the same features. Gone are the days when ‘instant messaging’ only referred to plain text-based communication. Our fast paced life has reduced sentences to mere clusters of unintelligible consonants and needed something even simpler, hence the evolution of emoji and stickers! The new video calling feature in Messenger will urge people to put their heart back into communication, thereby making it personal again.
Having said that, Facebook is perhaps the last major brand to add the video calling feature to its app. Yet, for a brand like Facebook it hardly matters, since they have a massive user base, which most of the other similar apps can only dream of. As for the Messenger users, the new video calling feature will give them one less reason to look elsewhere, further cementing Messenger’s position in the app world.
The video calling feature of Facebook’s Messenger app is quite easy to use, but the calls can only be made when both caller and the recipient have the new updated version of the app installed on their device – whether it be an Android or an iOS handset. Reports suggest that the initial roll-out started in select countries, but is now going on in every corner of the world. Word’s also around that Facebook is working to patch things up in select nations and hence, the new update may take a while to reach those countries.