Meta-owned Whatsapp has rolled out several new features on May 5, the most notable being the ability to react with emojis to individual messages, as well as an increase to 2GB for file sharing and a maximum of 512 members per group.
"We’re excited to share that emoji reactions are now available on the latest version of the app. Reactions are fun, fast, and they reduce overload in groups too. We’ll continue improving them by adding an even broader range of expressions in the future," Whatsapp said in a statement.
The social media giant announced last month that its vision for the near future is kickstarting "communities" in Whatsapp, enabling larger groups to operate using the platform.
"Communities on WhatsApp will enable people to bring together separate groups under one umbrella with a structure that works for them," it said in a statement.
"That way people can receive updates sent to the entire Community and easily organize smaller discussion groups on what matters to them. Communities will also contain powerful new tools for admins, including announcement messages that are sent to everyone and control over which groups can be included."
While this particular feature has not been rolled out as of yet, WhatsApp did increase the maximum number of participants in a single group to 512, likely as a precursor to the needed framework to make communities function.
In addition, WhatsApp has greatly increased the size of files sent on the platform from 100MB to 2GB, pointing out that it will be particularly useful "for collaboration among small businesses and school groups."
"We hope people enjoy these updates and look forward to sharing more throughout the year."