WhatsApp has just launched its global expansion of the Channels feature, designed for broadcasting messages privately. This new capability will soon be accessible to users in over 150 countries worldwide.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, made the announcement of this feature’s rollout on his freshly established WhatsApp channel. He expressed his enthusiasm, saying, “Excited to introduce you all to WhatsApp Channels, a new private way for you to get updates from people and organizations you follow. I’m starting this channel to share Meta news and updates.”
The Channels feature was initially introduced in June by Meta to users in Colombia and Singapore and later expanded to seven additional countries in July.
Channels are conveniently situated in a dedicated tab within the app, ensuring privacy by concealing the channels you follow. Importantly, your personal information, such as your phone number, remains hidden from administrators and followers.
Know more: How to Create a Whatsapp Channel
While the core functionality of channels revolves around one-to-many communication via broadcast messages, the company is enhancing the experience with new features, including the ability to react to messages with emojis. Users will also have visibility into the total number of reactions received.
With the global launch, WhatsApp will introduce an improved directory for discovering channels tailored to your country. This list can be sorted by criteria like “new,” “most active,” and “most popular.” When users forward channel updates to groups or individuals, a link to the channel will be included.
For administrators, WhatsApp is introducing the capability to edit messages for up to 30 days. Additionally, the chat app allows message editing for individual or group chats within a 15-minute window.
Notably, Meta is initially restricting channel creation to select individuals and organizations, with plans to eventually open it up to everyone.
Among the notable additions to channels with the global launch are Olivia Rodrigo, David Guetta, Billboard, MLB, and Mark Zuckerberg himself. While the exact number of available channels on the platform wasn’t disclosed, WhatsApp stated that there are now “thousands” of them. WhatsApp also maintains its own channel for communicating about the app’s features.
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This expansion follows Meta’s global rollout of the Channels feature on Instagram, aimed at facilitating one-to-many communication between creators and their fans.
Over the past year, WhatsApp has been experimenting with various features to cater to different group sizes. Last November, the company introduced Communities to facilitate communication across multiple groups, particularly in settings like schools, residential complexes, or clubs. In the previous month, WhatsApp introduced a feature allowing users to create unnamed groups with a limit of six people.
