WhatsApp has announced that Channels is rolling out globally to over 150 countries. The feature was first launched back in June and was slowly made available in select countries, including Malaysia in July. Alongside the new wider release, the company is also updating the feature with new tools and has added thousands of channels.
As a lot of you already know, Channels is situated under a new “Updates” tab where you can find both status updates as well as channels that you follow. It is a one-way private broadcast tool for people or organisations to post updates through a chronological thread, with the channels you’re following being kept private.
With the update, the feature gets an enhanced directory where you can find new channels to follow that are automatically filtered based on your country, as well as sorting them by ones that are new, most active, and have the most number of followers. Additionally, users can now react to content using emojis and see a total count of reactions, but your reaction will be kept hidden from other users.
Admins of channels will soon be able to edit updates for up to 30 days before they are automatically deleted. Last but not least, forwarded updates will contain a link back to the original channel. WhatsApp says that it will be adding more features based on user feedback and, more excitingly, it will eventually allow anyone to make a channel, not just organisations.
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(Source: Meta Press Release)
