Facebook has introduced a lot of weird new concepts lately, like a tip jar for posts, and chatbots for businesses. Here’s another weird idea getting added to the Messenger component of Facebook: group calling! You’ll be able to call up to 50 people at the same time.
I mean, I guess they had to cap that number somewhere. 50 definitely seems like a higher number than anyone would ever need to reach, unless you’re going to use Messenger for work conference calls. That might indeed be the intention here, given Facebook’s efforts in the past year to rebrand themselves as a workplace-friendly app.
I’m not sure Messenger could compete with Slack just yet when it comes to crafting virtual workplace tools (Slack is still the cool kid in that arena). Still, maybe Facebook could upend Skype and Google Hangouts. Messenger already introduced one-on-one video calls to Messenger about a year ago; I would predict, based on this news, that group video call functionality would be the next feature to appear.
Outside of work conference calls, though, when do you ever need to do a group call with somebody, let alone 50 somebodies? More to the point, when do you ever call anybody? Besides your parents. Speaking of, Facebook is the social network that your parents are most likely to be on. Never mind, I just figured out who this feature is for.
(via The Verge, image via Facebook)
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