Now you can add your Facebook friend during a live video or audio chat

Facebook has rolled out a new feature in both iOS and Android apps that can allow users to add more friends and family members to a live audio and video chats in Messenger.


With the update, users need not hang up and manually add people into a conversation before restarting the call.

"We're excited to share a small new feature that will hopefully have a big impact to make your video and audio chats easier and faster than ever," Sarah Morris, Product Manager of Messenger, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

Earlier, to turn a one-on-one video or audio chat into a group chat, users had to hang up, start a new conversation from your inbox -- either by creating an entirely new message or by searching for an old one -- and then turn that conversation into a call.

While in a video chat or on a voice call, tap the screen, select the "add person" icon and choose who you want to join.

Does Instagram copy Snapchat? Insta CEO admits 'stories' similar to 'snaps'

Does Instagram copy Snapchat? Most of you will instantly agree it does but for Instagram CEO, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app is just "building" on Snapchat.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Kevin Systrom said that even if Snapchat had all of these features before, it doesn't mean Instagram is blatantly copying Snapchat.

Systrom endorsed that Instagram's "Stories" feature is "definitely similar" to Snapchat's version, but argued that it did not establish that they were copying.

Originally launched by Snapchat, the "Stories" feature shows photos and videos shared in chronological order that disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook introduced something similar in its app Instagram last August. Today, Instagram has over 200 million people using "Stories" daily — more than even Snapchat.

Today, Messenger, WhatsApp and the main Facebook app have all added "Stories" feature (In WhatsApp, it is called 'Status').

However, for Instagram CEO, Snapchat-Instagram battle is akin to the early days of cars, saying that more companies came along after the Model T.

"In this scenario, Instagram is simply building upon a technology that Snapchat created," Systrom was quoted as saying.

That Facebook is going after Snapchat is not news, but the battle has now become somewhat ugly.

At its recent F8 developer conference in San Jose in the US, CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched "Camera Effects Platform" to encourage augmented reality (AR) effects -- a move reported by The New York Times as Facebook's "brazen heist" over Snapchat.

"Facebook is not just learning/borrowing features from Snapchat (mostly to Instagram), but it has been borrowing features from other messaging apps too. For example, Facebook Messenger learned a lot of features from WeChat (China) since last year's F8, such as creating branded accounts and letting brands use it for customer services," Xiaofeng Wang, Senior Analyst with US-based market research firm Forrester, told IANS.
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