Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp on Tuesday announced new features coming to its status, including ‘Voice Status’, ‘Status Reactions’ and much more. The new features have started rolling out to users globally and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement. The ‘Voice Status’ feature allows users to record and share voice messages for up to 30 seconds on WhatsApp status.

On the other hand, ‘Status Reactions’ allows users to give a quick and easy way to respond to status updates from their friends and close contacts.

“This was the #1 feature users wanted, following the launch of Reactions last year. You can now quickly reply to any status by swiping up and tapping on one of eight emojis. You can of course still reply to a status with text, voice message, stickers and more,” the platform said.

The company also introduced other features including ‘Private Audience Selector’, ‘Status Profile Rings for New Updates’ and ‘Link Previews on Status’.

With the ‘Private Audience Selector’, users can update their privacy settings per status so that they can choose who views their status each time they update it. Moreover, the most recent audience selection will be used as the default for the users’ next status. “With the new status profile ring you’ll never miss a status from a loved one. This ring will be present around your contact’s profile picture whenever they share a status update. It will be visible in the chat lists, group participant lists, and contact info,” the platform said.

Now when users post a link on their status, they will see a visual preview of the link content, similar to when users send a message, thanks to the ‘Link Previews on Status’ feature. “Status is a popular way to share ephemeral updates with friends and close contacts on WhatsApp. They disappear in 24 hours and may include photos, videos, GIFs, text, and more,” the company said. “Just like your personal chats and calls, your WhatsApp status is protected by end-to-end encryption so you can share privately and securely,” it added.

WhatsApp rolling out feature to let users share up to 100 media on Android beta

WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature which will allow users to share up to 100 media within the chats, on Android beta.

With the new feature, beta users can now select up to 100 media in the media picker within the application, which was earlier limited to only 30, reports WABetaInfo.

This feature is useful as users will finally be able to share entire albums, making it easier to share memories and moments. Moreover, it will help users to avoid selecting the same photo or video more than once when they have to send a lot of media files.

The ability to share up to 100 media within the chats is available for some beta testers and is expected to roll out to more people over the coming days, the report said.

Last week, it was reported that the messaging platform was rolling out longer group subjects and descriptions on Android beta.

While the characters of the group subject have been increased from 25 to 100 to provide group admins more freedom when naming their groups, the group description increased from 512 characters to 2048 characters.        Source: IANS