Facebook recently came up with a lot of updates to its own and owned platforms. Their experimental NPE team came up with their 6th app that solely focuses on calls between friends.
CatchUp
The new app is called CatchUp, which allows users to see when their friends are online and set up a voice call between them, and users will also be able to join chats that are ongoing.
Just like the messenger, users will be able to see which of their friends is online and ready to talk, they can join a discussion that are open similar to Messenger Rooms. Users will be able to set their status so their friends will know they are available and ready to talk.
Creator Studio App Update
Facebook also added post creation capacity to its creator studio app recently. This new feature should offer users to create posts within the app itself. Just go to the post composer option found on the top right corner of the app and select the post type.
You have the option to choose between a video, photo, and text post. Choose a post type and fill in the details, add in an image if required. Once finished with creating a post, you can either save the post as a draft to edit later, post it right at the moment or you can schedule the post for the future as well.
Facebook also added some additional features, such as:
Video metadata fields which allow users to add their own title and description to their videos and Thumbnail selection feature that offers users the ability to either choose a thumbnail from their device’s library or from a video they’ve uploaded.
Polls
On 21st May, Facebook announced that they are bringing back polls for Messenger once again. Polls were initially launched in 2016 but were removed recently when Facebook revamped the messenger app.
Facebook mentioned that they have revamped the new version of Polls with a refreshed look and feel with better colors and a newly updated button for users to vote. This new and updated version of Polls is also available in the desktop version of Messenger for both Mac and Windows platforms.
Profile Lock
Facebook introduced a new profile lock feature for users in India, which will allow users to lock their profile with just one step. Once a profile is locked, all the information and content related to that particular profile will be locked for anybody that isn’t a friend on that account.
Anyone who isn’t a friend of a user, will only have the option to see only 5 elements in a profile. This will include no access to images of people. This feature looks specifically designed to better protect the female users of Facebook to avoid any unnecessary use of their information.
WhatsApp is testing QR codes, a feature that should make it easier for users to share their contact info with their QR codes. Users will get an option to scan a QR code of other users, which will get them their WhatsApp contact info.
Scanning QR codes to get information is pretty common with WeChat, an extremely popular social media app in China. QR codes have essentially replaced cash and card payments in mere five years in China according to Greg Geng, the VP at Tencent, a company that owns WeChat.
