Facebook Messenger Group Video Chat Launched for Android, iOS, the Web

Facebook recently revamped its Messenger app's design to make it more camera-focused and added several features like 3D masks and text-based artwork suggestions. Now, the company has added a feature that will add further utility to the app-group video calls. This feature had been requested for quite some time now but the social networking giant has finally decided to roll it out for Android and iOS devices as well as Web version worldwide.

Facebook Messenger users will be able to see up to six people at a time but up to 50 people can join in the conversation via voice or camera, the company said in its news post. "Once more than 6 people are on the call, just the dominant speaker is shown to all participants," it said. In order to start a group video chat, users need to go to an already existing group conversation, or create a new one, and tap the video icon on the top-right of the screen.

All the group members will then be notified and can join in the video chat via single tap. "For an extra nudge, you can also directly ring just a few people or the whole group," Facebook said.

In an interesting move, the social media networking giant is also rolling out a feature that allows users to add background colours to their text-only posts on Facebook, as per a report by The Next Web. In order to add colour to the posts, users need to tap on the status bar, choose from the colour choices (which include gradient options), as per the report. The feature reportedly doesn't work for links, image, or video posts.

This change marks a huge deviation from Facebook's trademark style with plain and simple aesthetics. The feature is already rolling out to Android devices but will make its way to iOS as well. The feature will be available for the Web version "in coming months," as per the report.

Considering that Christmas is just around the corner, it might not be a bad idea to start a group video chat with your family or friends. You can further choose add colours of the festival in your Facebook posts and make the most out of the recent changes from the social media platform.