Meta Introduces Communities to Messenger
Meta has quietly rolled out a new feature to its popular messaging app Messenger – communities. This addition comes two years after the same feature was introduced to Meta’s other communication app, WhatsApp.
Communities in Messenger offer users the ability to connect with thousands of others without the need to be part of the same Facebook group. It’s important to differentiate communities from community chats, which were introduced to Messenger in 2022. Community chats allow users to connect with other members of Facebook groups, while communities create dedicated spaces for real-time communication that are independent of any Facebook group.
Each community in Messenger includes a dedicated Home space where admins can share updates and announcements. Up to 5 people can join a community via sharable invitations, and each community can have multiple group chats on different topics.
While Messenger’s communities feature is similar to WhatsApp’s feature of the same name, the main difference lies in the integration with Facebook’s social graph. This means that users can invite others based on their Facebook profiles without the need for phone numbers.
For those interested in WhatsApp, the app is currently testing a new feature within communities that will allow users to choose a cover photo for events. This feature is currently in beta version 2.24.12.5 for Android and is expected to be available to all users in upcoming updates.
