Meta announces two very useful features for WhatsApp

Meta has announced that it will soon be adding two new features to WhatsApp, the ability to create events in groups and the ability to reply to messages in Community’s Announcements Groups. Let’s take a detailed look at them.

Starting with the first feature, WhatsApp will soon let you create an event in a group, such as a birthday or a get-together. You can add a date and a time to this event. Once you create an event, the app will send it as a message to the group and will also add it to the group’s information page. That’s not all though. People will be able to respond to the event, allowing them to let others in the group know if they are attending the event or not, or share their thoughts about the event. The new feature makes it easier to plan an event with members in a group.

Coming to the second feature, WhatsApp will soon let everyone in an Announcement Group reply to messages in it. Currently, only admins can send messages there, and non-admin members can only read messages in them. The upcoming feature will make Announcement Groups more conversational, and therefore, more useful. What’s even better is that when people reply to a message in it, the app will keep those messages minimized and not notify you about them to make sure that you’re not constantly disturbed by every message.

Meta says “Events are coming to groups that belong to a Community first, and will roll out to all groups over the coming months.” Unfortunately, the company didn’t say when it will roll out the ability to reply to messages in Announcement Groups.