Facebook’s new dedicated Zoom competitor, Messenger Rooms, is now available globally. Messenger Rooms was first announced last month aimed at serving casual teleconferencing users.
A single “Room” can accommodate up to 50 people, and there’s no time limit. Hosts can invite other friends and family to join on Facebook through News Feed, Groups, and even the Events section.
This will give the rooms more visibility, which can be problematic if you don’t want a specific friend to join the room. That’s why Messenger Rooms will allow you to “choose who can see and join your room.” You can also “remove people from your room and lock the room if you don’t want anyone else to join.”
The product is now available on Messenger and Facebook, and anyone can join even those with no Facebook accounts. Notably, Messenger Rooms can also be used for personal one-on-one calls apart from group calls.
Through its launch, Facebook users worldwide can now create “rooms” via either Facebook or Messenger across Android and iOS and even via Messenger’s desktop app available for both Windows and macOS.
However, there is one caveat on creating rooms via Facebook’s main platform. This is only available on select markets, but we should expect it to be available for everyone as well. For the rest of the world, you can only create rooms via Messenger.
Messenger Rooms is also expected to be integrated into WhatsApp and Instagram through dedicated buttons. WhatsApp for web and even android is already testing a Messenger Rooms button.