Messenger Rooms now lets you broadcast live on Facebook

Almost every social media service is doubling down on the potential of live video and group video calling, thanks to the new normal, and Facebook is not one to be left behind. The social media juggernaut has today announced that users can now broadcast live directly from Messenger Rooms. The feature is now available worldwide on Facebook and Messenger web starting today, and will soon arrive on the mobile and desktop apps as well.

Those who create a room can broadcast live alongside up to 50 people, and can broadcast it on a profile, page or group. As for the audience, even those who don’t have a Facebook account can join in. The user who creates the room controls whether the broadcast is shared on Facebook, and can also remove or add people during the live broadcast.

Additionally, there will also be an option to lock or unlock a room during a live session. As for the participants, they have the choice to leave the room before the broadcast starts. Other Facebook viewers who stumble upon a live broadcast can report it if they think the content violates Facebook’s policies, and the company may itself collect audio and video samples for review.

Source: Messenger News

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Instagram now lets you create Messenger Rooms for group video calls

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Facebook’s Messenger Rooms video calling feature started rolling out globally earlier this month, with the company also announcing plans of Instagram integration back then. That vision has finally materialized, as Instagram users can now create a Messenger Rooms group from within the app itself.

Just tap on the video button at the top right corner in Instagram Direct and then select Create a Room option followed by picking up the contacts you want to have a group video call with. Once you’ve done that, you can create a link that can be shared with them on any platform, or directly go to the Messenger app by tapping the Join Room button.

Up to 50 people can join a Messenger Rooms group video call, and even those who don’t have a Facebook account can join the party. In addition to Instagram, Facebook has already started testing this feature on WhatsApp’s beta channel and will soon bring the Messenger Rooms integration to more users via the stable stream.

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WhatsApp starts testing Messenger Rooms shortcut on Android and iOS

Prior to the global rollout of its Messenger Rooms video conferencing tool, Facebook announced plans to integrate it with other in-house apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Well, it appears the testing has already begun, as the Messenger Rooms shortcut has started appearing for WhatsApp users on the beta channel.

First spotted by WABetaInfo, the latest beta builds of WhatsApp for Android (v2.20.163) and iOS (2.20.52.6) introduce the Messenger Rooms shortcut in the chat window that appears when you tap the attachment button on the text bar. The Messenger Rooms shortcut replaces the camera icon and is labeled as simply Room. The Room button also appears as a separate icon in the calls section on WhatsApp.

Tapping on the Messenger Rooms shortcut asks users if they want to open the Messenger application and start a group video call with up to 50 people. However, this feature is currently available only to a small bunch of users in the US and a few other countries. You can try the beta build (on Android) from APKMirror here and see if you’re lucky enough.

Here’s how it looks on Android:

And this is how the shortcut appears on WhatsApp’s iOS client:

Source: WABetaInfo (1), (2)

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