Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is testing with a new Status innovation that permits users to share mood-setting images and videos overlaid with additional custom factors such as emoji, with the content disappearing 24 hours after it’s shared, primarily a portrait of Snapchat Stories.
The search feature was detected on Friday by BGR India which states Status sharing is currently accessible to enrolled public beta examiners of WhatsApp, using a rooted Android or iOS device.
ALSO READ: Parliamentary panel to look into debit card data breach
In the Android version of the beta the main WhatsApp message cover has a tab called ‘Status’, added in between ‘Chats’ on the left and ‘Calls’ on the right. It’s a whole supplementary channel directed in encouraging users to share temporary and primarily visual content with their WhatsApp connections.
In Snapchat Stories, a user can click a picture or record a video to share added with a wide range of editing tools to augment the content. Status also enables its users to add a caption to explain whatever they’re sharing. The send key shares the Status with the user’s WhatsApp contacts.
Snapchat started its Stories ephemeral timeline three years ago, and the sharing characteristic is hugely popular now, encouraging massive amounts of daily video views for Snapchat.
In recent times Facebook has been prioritizing video content, as part of a strong push to drive video ad revenue. So getting WhatsApp’s network of one billion users added with current monthly user more conventional to sharing visual content directly supports into that play. Especially after the WhatsApp declared an enormous change in its privacy policy earlier this summer.
ALSO READ: Apple seeks incentives to set up manufacturing unit in the country
So entering the new Status channel looks exactly a new type of race where businesses on the WhatsApp platform could start driving out marketing messages to users, connected with them.