The battle between Instagram and Snapchat continues to beef-up, with the latter making another Interesting move. Snap has just announced a new Group Video Chat feature, letting up to 16 individual users to video chat at once. Snap also introduced a new “Mentions” feature that allows users to tag friends in snaps uploaded onto Stories.
How to do a Group Video Chat on Snapchat?
Starting a video chat in Snapchat is pretty easy. All you need is to tap the video icon when in a group chat. All of the group members will receive a notification, allowing them to join for as long as the chat is going on and less than 16 members have joined the chat. Alternatively, you can also start up a call with a few people and invite new friends to join. One more fun part of Group Video Chat in Snapchat is that you can also use Snapchat’s crown jewel filters during the chat. This definitely adds to the fun when a group of friends are talking.
For those camera-shy peoples, Snapchat has also introduced group voice call feature. The voice-only group chat can hold up to 32 members at a time. You can also toggle the camera off during a video chat to switch into voice-only mode.
Snapchat also introduced the “Mentions” feature to tag friends in snaps uploaded onto their Stories. This feature is already available on Instagram, marking a reversal of flow that generally saw Instagram picking Snapchat features. Meanwhile, Instagram is also reportedly mulling the idea of video calling.
How to Tag a friend in your Snapchat Storie
To tag a friend onto your stories, just type “@”, followed by the name of your friend. Now tap the name from the suggested ones. The tagged person will be notified in the chat window.
Snapchat has introduced tons of new features recently, including Map Explore, deluxe Bitmoji customization, Giphy integration and custom face lenses. Now integration of the latest group video and voice calling definitely gives Snap an upper-hand over Insta. And this should be the perfect time to do so, given all those #deletefacebook movements of late.
This is a server-side update and client app update will roll-out globally in a week or so.
