Meta said it’s also testing letting businesses automatically send personalized messages to multiple customers for a fee…reports Asian Lite News
Meta (formerly Facebook) on Tuesday announced that WhatsApp Business has surpassed 200 million monthly active users globally, up from 50 million in 2020.
Soon, businesses will be able to publish ads directly to Facebook or Instagram from the app and there will be no requirement of a Facebook account, said Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta said it’s also testing letting businesses automatically send personalized messages to multiple customers for a fee.
“Starting soon we’ll begin testing a new feature within the WhatsApp Business app where small businesses will have the option to send personalised messages to their customers — like appointment reminders, birthday greetings or even updates on a holiday sale — in a faster and more efficient way,” the company said in a statement.
This new feature will allow businesses to send personalised messages with the customer’s name and customisable call-to-action buttons to specific customer lists, such as those with a select label (like ‘VIP customers’ or ‘new customers’), schedule the day and time the messages are sent.
WhatsApp to launch darker top app bar
WhatsApp, continues its tradition of regularly introducing updates to its millions of users worldwide. Of late, it has introduced several new features that have not only enhanced user-experience but also eased the way the app is used. In its latest update, WhatsApp is working on a darker top app bar exclusively for Android users, aiming to further enhance user experience and improve the app’s usability. This exciting feature is currently in the development stage, as reported by WABetainfo.
The darker top app bar is expected to be an upgrade to the existing dark mode, offering a distinct visual experience for users while navigating the messaging platform. It is expected to be rolled out to beta testers in a future update of the app.
By introducing a darker theme based on grayscale and black tones, WhatsApp not only aims to provide an aesthetically pleasing interface but also promises enhanced performance. Users with AMOLED screens on their advanced mobile devices will particularly benefit from this update, according to the report.
With this change, WhatsApp hopes to further align its application with the style of Material Design 3, and it seems the developers also want to add a sense of modernity to the theme, which has not received updates for this interface for many years, the report said, adding that the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.13.17 update, available on the Google Play Store, revealed the app’s plans to introduce changes for the top app bar while using the dark theme.
The report also shared a screenshot showing the major differences that users might be able to witness between the current and the future version.
While the update is expected to be made available for Android users, it is still uncertain when it will be offered for iOS users.
This is not the only update that is presently under development. After recently introducing the ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ and ‘Edit’ messages features, WhatsApp is now reportedly also working to develop a new feature that will help users to set the duration for pinned messages.
With this feature, users will be able to select the duration for which they want their messages to remain pinned within chats and groups.