Meta is implementing a few changes to WhatsApp that will make the app more usable for large groups of people, including the wide rollout of communities.
Communities are designed to house multiple related groups within larger organizations of people, such as a neighborhood or workplace. Think Slack or Discord, but with a WhatsApp spin (including end-to-end encrypted messages), and admins can share updates with an entire community via an announcement channel. The company started testing communities in April and now they are rolling out to everyone.
Meta also introduces some new features that can improve day-to-day communication. New in-chat polls can be useful for landing on a meeting time or choosing which movie to watch. Video calls can now have up to 32 participants, which can be useful for a large video call in your new community. And if you just want to create a giant group, WhatsApp doubles the maximum group size from 512 to 1024 users.
