Facebook is undoubtedly the largest social media platform there is today, boasting a user base of over 1.4 billion people from all over the world.
Facebook launched their Messenger app a few years ago and since then, this app has been doing great despite huge competition from the likes of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was bought by Facebook in February 2014; this move was viewed by some as a way by Facebook to eliminate the competition that came from WhatsApp by simply making it its own. Since these two work on somehow different philosophies, where Messenger makes use of the Facebook details to sign you up and WhatsApp makes use of phone numbers to sign up users, Facebook owning them will help them be in the driving seat of the most successful apps on earth today.
Facebook Messenger offers free voice and video calling services
Facebook Messenger has been offering users with free voice calling for over two years now. However, during this period, users of the app could only send free video messages to each other, in addition to text, audio as well as photo messages. A few weeks ago, Messenger received the video calling feature which allows users to have a face-to-face conversation.
What makes things even much better for Facebook Messenger users is that the video calling services are available for free. All the user needs is a suitable internet connection, be it mobile data or Wi-Fi. However, the former option will eat into your data plan unless you get an unlimited subscription.
Messenger video calls are cross-platform
If you are using Facebook Messenger on an Android, iOS or even Windows Phone device, there is completely nothing to worry about as far as cross-platform compatibility is concerned. What this means is that making free Messenger video calls from an Android device to a person using an iOS device won’t be any problem at all. The same will also be possible with any other supported mobile platforms and users can start a video call from inside any conversation with just a single tap.
When chatting with someone on Messenger, there is a video icon located towards the top right corner that must be tapped in order to initiate a one-to-one conversation.
WhatsApp to get video calling feature later this month
Even though Facebook Messenger is a little late to join the video calling party, it is never too late as WhatsApp is yet to feature this service in their platform, yet the app is the most popular at the moment. However, it won’t take long before this service is made available on WhatsApp. At the moment, the users of WhatsApp can only make use of the voice calling feature, which is available for the Android and iOS users only. Other platforms will soon be getting the update, including those on the Windows Phone devices.
Facebook Messenger has over 600 million users from all over the world; however, the video calling services are currently available in limited regions that include North America and some parts of Europe that include the UK, Belgium, Portugal and Poland. Other parts of the world will soon be getting this update. As for those using WhatsApp, video calling services will show up towards the end of this month, or at least early next month.
Related ItemsFacebook Messenger
