WhatsApp launches its Communities, with space for up to 1,024 participants and the possibility of conducting surveys

Back in the almost distant month of May, WhatsApp announced a new function to create thematic groups called Communities. Since then, this feature in the testing phase has matured, and is now being launched openly with its gradual deployment to everyone, allowing the creation of maxi-groups of 1,024 users with more robust administrative options.

The definitive version of Communities allows you to create collective groups from other smaller ones, so that it is possible to create a Community for a building that includes the WhatsApp group of the owners of the houses and the one corresponding to the garages, or generate a Community with the groups of schoolchildren corresponding to the teachers of a specific course, the parents’ chat and the extracurricular classes chat. Roughly speaking, it is almost like ordering related groups in a structure of forums and subforums.

Since Communities may have requirements that exceed those of the typical group of users, WhatsApp has enabled some special features to make them more practical. For example, it is possible to make video calls with a maximum of 32 participants and polls can be carried out. Also, it is possible to share larger files (something important when it comes to sending heavy documentation in formats such as PDF, for example) and administrators can send important messages to all members.

To start using the Communities function, simply touch the corresponding tab at the top of the chats (Android) or at the bottom (iOS), launching a screen where it is possible to create a completely new community, from scratch, or integrate one based on existing groups.

Anyone who is familiar with Telegram will realize that with this change WhatsApp tries to compete in better conditions as a messaging platform for large groups. It is not the only function that WhatsApp wants to improve in the short and medium term. The latest betas also add features long available on Telegram such as a default “me” contact for send information to oneself in a simple way and improvements in photo management, including a tool to blur parts of an image using the application for computers.