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Meta has an exciting news for Liverpool fans, as it has rolled out a new outfit collection for the avatars, featuring exclusive Liverpool FC clothing items.


The virtual apparel is available for purchase in the Meta Avatars Store on all of Meta’s platforms - Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. “The collection includes both a Liverpool FC home and away kit, as well as a pair of LFC label fashion wear looks,” says Meta.

Meta Rolls Out New, Exclusive Liverpool Apparel for Avatars



In an attempt to revive engagement across Facebook, Meta is launching a new Community Chat option for Messenger that it has created to facilitate topic-based discussion groups. “We’re building Community Chats as a new way to connect with people who share your interests,” says Meta. The social company is currently testing the option with a limited number of users.

 

Community Chats are sort of a mix of Messenger and Facebook Groups where users can connect with each other. More specifically, users can create Facebook Groups, start chats and audio channels, and invite others to join their groups from within Messenger via Community Chats.

 

Meta Launches New Engagement Tool for Messenger: Community Chats



To further expand its avatar feature, Meta is launching a new avatar fashion store that features a variety of collections from big fashion houses like Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne. Meta plans to launch the store across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

 

In addition to this, Meta has plans of allowing digital creators and brands to design their own fashion items for the store and sell them, which ultimately makes this initiative a monetization tool as well.

 

Meta Develops Avatar Fashion Store, Set to be Released Across its Social Platforms

 

Meta is working on providing end-to-end encryption across all of its messaging apps. Since last year, the company has been testing end-to-end encryption for group chats, including voice and video calls. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that all Messenger users will now be able to implement encryption in all group chats in the app.

 

This step towards improved security and privacy on Messenger is part of Meta’s broader plan of cross-communication among its messaging apps WhatsApp, Messenger and IG Direct. The inboxes in each app will be synchronized and the same data protections will be applied to each.

 

While Meta is ensuring better security with these updates, it is also a concern among people as the approach may be against law enforcement policies that are responsible for tracking potential criminal activity. Increased security in the form of encryption limits the capacity to track perpetrators of crimes, hence becoming a hinderance in investigative processes. Nevertheless, Meta persistently believes in providing more freedom to users in terms of choosing whom they share their data with and to what extent.

Meta’s Latest Security Initiative: End to End Encryption on Messenger Group Chats

 


Messenger is introducing a bunch of new features based on the holiday season, including new AR effects, Soundmoji options featuring Taylor Swift’s album, and a new option of bill-splitting within group chat threads.

 

The interactive AR features are part of the new group effects for video calls and can be accessed by multiple people in a group video chat. Messenger has collaborated with some of the high-profile influencers from other apps for these effects, like King Bach, TikTok star Bella Poarch and Zack King. Of course, this is part of Facebook’s attempt to attract young users to its platform; something that it has been lacking.

 


For a similar purpose, Facebook has added new Soundmoji options featuring the world’s favorite artist Taylor Swift and her new album Red. Soundmojis are Messenger’s emoji characters with audio snippets that can be played by users when they receive a message with a Soundmoji.

Messenger Introduces New AR Effects, Soundmoji Options, and an Automated Bill-Splitting Tool

Facebook’s monthly active users reached 3.2 billion

Out of all its apps, Facebook holds the highest number of monthly active users or in other words, logged-in or registered users on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp who used any of these Family applications one time either from desktop or their smartphones within the last 30 days.

The social media giant started to report the metrics of its Family applications in 2019 however, the company never revealed the new user data for Instagram or Messenger since 2018 and 2017, respectively. As for WhatsApp’s new data, the last official release was made in the first quarter of 2020 when the platform hit a milestone of 2 billion users.

Facebook’s monthly active users reached 3.2 billion #infographic

 


On the 4th of October, all of Facebook’s services including its main platform, Instagram, and Messenger, suddenly stopped working for about six hours. Previously in 2019, a similarly bad outage had happened to Facebook for a period of 24 hours, which affected small businesses and content creators more than anyone else.

 

 

Facebook presented the explanation for the recent outage later in the day, claiming that a configuration issue was the culprit behind it.  A day later, engineers at Facebook have offered further explanation, saying that a routine maintenance interfered in the backbone connection between data centers at Facebook, resulting in the DNS servers going offline.

Facebook Explained the Reason Behind the Recent Massive Outage of its Services

WhatsApp puts out status messages to dispel the rumors

Once again, WhatsApp has done what it takes to assure protection to its dear users. For months, a lot of misinformation, as implied by the company, has been circulating around the world. The recent announcement of WhatsApp declaring their partnership with Facebook has taken a toll on people as it has urged them to look into their personal security. According to WhatsApp, the new policy will not affect the privacy of people's information or their conversation; it has and always will protect its user's information at all costs.

WhatsApp puts out status messages to dispel the rumors

A large number of America’s Far-Rights shift to encrypted messengers

A free speech platform and a social media application, Parler was banned from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store after supporting the riot on USA’s capitol. Moreover, the company also refused to incorporate moderation rules in order to avoid the hate speeches and spread of false information that could in any way encourage violent attacks in the future.

A large number of America’s Far-Rights shift to encrypted messengers #infographic

WhatsApp enables Integration of Facebook family messaging applications

The newest WhatsApp update has taken the entire world by storm. As per the company, the Facebook messaging application has successfully been integrated into WhatsApp’s structure, and this update will come into effect by 8 February of this year. Despite the negative remarks posed by people and regulators. Facebook continues to grow its messaging infrastructure by bringing other popular applications into the picture. First, Instagram and now WhatsApp to become the new child applications of Facebook.



It is important to note that this integration will allow the data set of users to be processed across Facebook applications, which could be an unfavorable situation for many cautious WhatsApp users. Information like Phone number, IP address, your way of communication, transaction data, etc., will be collected by the Facebook application to keep the integration intact and smooth. These measures are only necessary to keep the messaging cross over steady across Facebook and WhatsApp. Similarly, the policy update also states that with this integration, the Facebook pay account of the users will automatically become the one for WhatsApp as well, where the users can easily pay for their products.

WhatsApp enables Integration of Facebook family messaging applications

Upgrade in the WhatsApp video call feature from the perspective of a desktop client

The latest news posted by the WABetaInfo refers to an outstanding upgrade in the WhatsApp video call feature from the perspective of a desktop client. Since WhatsApp has been the popular choice among smartphone users in the previous decade, the company thought it was now time for the MAC users to enjoy a quick Whatsapp upgrade so the users can easily multitask without even having to keep their phones burning up.



The beta testing for WhatsApp voice and video calling is still in process, and it is safe to say that soon enough, this feature will be available for each MAC user on their desktops. The testing results conclude that the option of the video call or voice call will appear in the header of the WhatsApp chatbox. Symbols representing video calls and phone calls along with "BETA" tags have been integrated into the WhatsApp chat window, so it's easier for the user to recognize the correct option right away. 


The testing stage has also revealed that to engage in a video call; the user will first have to select the contact from either the contact list or chat list and then click on the video call button. After that, a small rectangular-shaped window will pop up, indicating that the user is currently busy in a call and at any time can either end, mute, and enable or disable the video. 


Meanwhile, if the MAC user finds another window popping with accepting or decline options, he needs not to worry because that window is an indication of an incoming call that could be accepted or rejected by the user on request.

The company has yet not given any particular extent of time for this particular feature to wait around, but considering the progress made by this company over the past few years, it has become pretty clear that the future-driven goals of the company are more than willing to complete their course.


Upgrade in the WhatsApp video call feature from the perspective of a desktop client

Google Messages allow users to schedule messages to be sent

The tech giant has been working for the past couple of months to develop a feature that makes its messaging service stand out from every other messaging platform. Google introduced the Rich Communication Services (RCS) last year, and since then, the company has been trying to launch something very creative and unique in order to enhance the experience. The features from RCS are pretty much similar to those of Apple’s iMessage and hence make the experience extremely satisfying for Android users.

As per the reports from various sources, it has been found that Google is currently working on a new feature that will allow its users to schedule a message to be sent at a particular time and date. The news has been received that Google will initially roll out the feature for a limited number of people.

Google Messages allow users to schedule messages to be sent

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