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A new beta version of WhatsApp Messenger incorporates Facebook Messenger’s new Rooms group video calling feature. It is essentially a link to the Messenger app, but is a new step in the integration of Facebook’s chat apps.
WABetaInfo writes that the link has appeared in the Android beta of WhatsApp, version 2.20.163. In this version, some users will see the links, including European users. The button can be found in the attachment menu in chats and as a button in the Callstab. Whoever presses it will be redirected to the Facebook Messenger app.
Rooms became worldwide at the end of this week put live. The feature allows Facebook users to make video calls to fifty people at a time. Guests can also join a Room without a Facebook account, as long as they have the link. Facebook eventually wants to encrypt Rooms conversations end-to-end, but that is not the case now. It works with the same encryption as other video calls in Messenger.
The concrete influence of Facebook on WhatsApp has so far been limited to a ‘From Facebook’ text here and there in the app. It has been in there since November. Rooms integration should also come to Instagram, another major Facebook subsidiary.
