Telegram also revealed that it currently has over 400 million active monthly users now compared to 300 million active monthly users a year ago. (Image: Reuters)
Companies are either introducing group video calls or moving into doorstep delivery of daily essentials — the two most important parts at the time of lockdown. With the country-wide lockdown video conferencing apps like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet and more gained massive popularity among users. To compete with Zoom Facebook announced Messenger Rooms last week while WhatsApp doubled its group video call limit. The next addition to the group video calling apps list will be Telegram.
Telegram still does not support the video calling feature. The company has announced that by the end of this year it will bring a “secure group video calls” feature for its users. In a new blog post, Telegram said that “video calls in 2020 are much like messaging in 2013.” The company hasn’t revealed a specific launch date of the group call feature as yet.
Telegram also revealed that it currently has over 400 million active monthly users now compared to 300 million active monthly users a year ago. The company noted in a press note that it was able to gain nearly 100 million users in a year with the help of 1.5 million daily sign-ups. Telegram is also the most downloaded social app in over 20 countries.
In the blog post, Telegram states that currently over two billion students around the world are away from schools during this coronavirus pandemic and need educational tools. To help the students the company has announced to distribute Euro 4,00,000 (approximately Rs 3,30,13,200) amongst online educational test content creators to develop a database of educational tests for all subjects and levels.
Students can also take part in Telegram’s push into the educational sector with the help of the Quizbot feature. This feature allows users to create and publish original educational tests on any subject and in any language. All these user-created tests will then be indexed in a searchable directory. Telegram will gauge the quality and the popularity of the quiz, and depending on that announce the winners in multiple stages and award them with a prize pool of two million Euros.
Recently, Telegram has collaborated with the health ministries and governments of 17 different countries under its anti-COVID initiative to share authentic news and updates regarding the pandemic, for example, India’s MyGov Corona Newsdesk.