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Yap Aryan | Norphoto | Getty Images
meta It is planning to launch a new streaming feature dubbed Channels for the WhatsApp messaging service.
The social media giant said Thursday that the new Channels feature is like a “private broadcast service” where individuals and organizations can send messages and updates to followers that are separate from the kinds of personal communications that occur between WhatsApp users.
Moderators who moderate a WhatsApp channel will be able to send texts, photos, videos, stickers and polls to their followers, who will not be able to reply to messages. Channel admins will not be allowed to add followers to their channels, which will store messages for 30 days before deleting them.
Unlike more traditional WhatsApp messages, Channels won’t use end-to-end encryption so you can “reach a wide audience,” WhatsApp said in a blog post. WhatsApp added that end-to-end encrypted channels may debut in the future for groups like nonprofits or health organizations that want their communications to be more secure.
WhatsApp users will eventually be able to find the channels they want to join in a searchable directory. They will be able to access the channels they follow via the new “Updates” tab. WhatsApp said the tab will be “separate from your conversations with family, friends, and communities.”
WhatsApp said it is working with various groups such as the Singapore Heart Foundation and the non-profit Colombia Check as part of its plans to launch the channels first in Colombia and Singapore before launching more widely in other countries later this year.
WhatsApp eventually plans to allow anyone to create a WhatsApp channel, along with its existing partners that also include the International Rescue Committee and the World Health Organization.
Meta, when it was known as Facebook, acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently told CNBC’s Jim Kramer that WhatsApp will be the social networking company’s “next chapter,” representing an opportunity for Meta to build a profitable business similar to Instagram and its core Facebook app.
Although Meta derives the bulk of its annual billion-dollar sales from online advertising, it has so far avoided adding ads to WhatsApp similar to Facebook and Instagram. Instead, Meta is pushing business messaging features as a way to monetize WhatsApp, hoping to offer companies more compelling ways to interact with users.
In fact, Meta said in the blog post that the company believes “there is an opportunity to support admins in a way that they can build business around their channel using our expanded payment services as well as being able to promote specific channels in the directory to help raise awareness.”
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