Facebook today announced that it’s launching one of the most requested Messenger feature – group video chat. The Facebook Messenger group video chat feature makes it easy for users to stay in touch face-to-face. The feature is being rolled out to Facebook Messenger for both Android and iOS as well as the desktop version of Messenger worldwide.
The Facebook Messenger group video chat feature supports up to 50 participants. If there are only up to six people in a chat, the app will automatically stream participants’ camera feed to one another in a grid view. If there are more than six participants, Messenger will only display the dominant speaker’s feed. This puts Facebook Messenger in a class of its own when you consider the fact that both Google Hangouts and Microsoft Skype impose a ten person limit on group video chats for the average user.
To use this feature, Messenger users require the latest version of the app. It’s easy to jump into an existing conversation or start a new one by simply tapping on the video icon on the upper right of the screen. Users can already directly chat with a few people or the entire group if they choose to do so.
While the feature works in the same manner on both iOS and Android, the live masks feature is limited to iOS for now. It allows users to add a visual overlay to their face in real time, not like Snapchat filters.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook and Facebook Messenger. Source: newsroom.fb