The update wheel turns on and on for WhatsApp, which has put out new features pretty consistently this year. The feature it’s currently working on is called “Communities”, and it’s basically an extension or expansion for regular group chats.
We’re more than a WhatsApp group. We’re a community.
XDA-Developers first spotted allusions to Communities a few weeks back, with WABetaInfo waiting until now to uncover more substantial details about the feature.
According to the latter, the Communities feature gives group admins more power in their chats, which strongly resemble regular group chats. The main selling point, it appears, is the feature’s ability to group together other group chats. So, groups within groups. Russian Nesting Groups.
There aren’t any screenshots to show exactly what this might look like yet, but from the way this function is described we imagine it will look similar to the way Discord handles channels within an overhanging community. For example, you could have a work Community with separate groups for “Ongoing projects”, “General Admin” and “Witty Banter”. The feature will apparently provide admin tools to better manage all of these groups together.
Also like Discord, admins will be able to invite new members via an invite link.
The Community feature is currently in development in WhatsApp’s iOS and Android beta platforms, so everything you see and hear about it right now is, naturally, subject to change.
WhatsApp’s been churning out updates recently, and that’s commendable enough. But we’re willing to bet the platform’s continued bad publicity and growing competition might be providing at least some incentive for it to better itself.