WhatsApp introduces Community Examples feature

CALIFORNIA: Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has introduced a new feature on iOS beta version, known as Community Examples.

According to a report, the new WhatsApp feature – Community Examples – helps beta users create communities by offering instructional examples through a shortcut that leads to an official FAQ.

The official FAQ gives them some instructions and tips about community creation, the ability to add groups to the community, and how to reach community members by sharing updates using the special community announcement group.

This feature aims to encourage more users to create a community.

Those interested in using this new feature can update to WhatsApp beta for iOS via TestFlight app. But, beta versions are generally not recommended if you don’t have a secondary device.

What is ‘WhatsApp Communities’?

WhatsApp introduced Communities last year in November and it is one such feature which lets you bring together multiple groups under one umbrella. This is aimed to be helpful for those who may want to organise workplace or school-related communication, or for keeping in touch with your housing society and neighbours.

This way, you could send announcements to a ‘mass’ or ‘whole’ at once, or start a discussion in the group without having to message everyone individually.

Animated avatar

Earlier this month, the messaging platform had started to roll out an animated avatar feature on iOS beta.

Users have to open the keyboard and select the avatar tab to check whether the feature is enabled for their account, reports WABetainfo. Beta users will then see some animations for certain avatars.

Users can share the animated avatars with anyone as it is not required to use the beta version to be able to receive them. “In addition, only a limited number of stickers are animated, but we expect that WhatsApp may offer an animated version of the entire avatar pack over time,” the report said.

The animated avatar feature is currently available to some beta testers that install the latest update of WhatsApp beta for iOS from the TestFlight app, and will roll out to more users over the coming days.