WhatsApp is a personal messaging app which is used by millions of people around the globe daily and is available on different operating systems with different screen sizes. Facebook owned WhatsApp is celebrating its 8th birthday on February 24, and guess what they have a surprise gift for you.
We are excited to announce that, coinciding with WhatsApp’s 8th birthday on February 24, we are reinventing the status feature. Starting today, we are rolling out an update to status, which allows you to share photos and videos with your friends and contacts on WhatsApp in an easy and secure way. Yes, even your status updates are end-to-end encrypted.
The new Status feature is rolling out worldwide on iOS, Android as well as Windows Phone, as we speak. But, you might have to wait a day or two to see an update in the store which will enable the feature.
In case you are wondering how this looks like, here is a demo video.
As you might have guessed, it is a Snapchat or Instagram stories clone, where you upload photos or videos, add text, emoji etc. and share them as stories with the followers. In WhatsApp case, you get a separate tab which aggregates all the content to let you know what your friends are upto throughout the day. As always, your status update will only last for 24 hours and supports end-to-end encryption, too.
WhatsApp has 1.2 billion monthly active users, who exchange 60 billion messages per day, including 3.3 billion photos, 760 million videos and 80 million GIFs.
Read the full story of how Status feature evolved over the years at their official blog
