Facebook Messenger launches 6-screen group movie talk with selfie masks

Teenage app sensation Houseparty will get some competition as Facebook Messenger is launching its own split-screen group movie talk feature. Six users can show up in split-screen at the time and don Snapchat-style selfie masks, while fifty total can listen and talk over voice while sending text, stickers, emojis, and GIFs.

The feature could make a Messenger a place to “livechill” with friends rather than just a way to send texts to exchange more utilitarian information or plan logistics. Instead of just popping in to fire off messages, you could suspend out for extended periods on the app. Facebook frames it as “perfect for those spontaneous moments where text just isn’t enough”.

Group movie talk starts rolling out worldwide on iOS, Android, and web, today, tho’ Android will have to wait for the MSQRD-powered selfie masks that might not ever come to desktop. It’s free on wi-fi but standard data charges will apply on cellular connections.

We’ve been anticipating this launch since Messenger released one-on-one movie calling in April two thousand fifteen and group audio calling a year later. Two hundred forty five million people make movie calls on Messenger each month already, so this feature could see rapid adoption.

The launch makes Messenger the very first popular western messaging app with group movie talk. It’s managed to hammer FaceTime/iMessage, Google Duo, and Snapchat to the punch. Messaging pioneer WeChat added it a year ago. WhatsApp shoved movie calls last month, and can treat groups movie via Booyah. [Correction: WhatsApp lacks a native group movie talk feature.] Google’s neglected Hangouts app launched many of these features back in 2013, but it hasn’t become a core place for text messaging, making it more of a specialty app amongst Google’s fragmented communication family.

US teenagers might be most familiar with the format from the latest rise of Houseparty, the fresh app from the makers of Meerkat. We profiled Houseparty’s climb to 1.Two million daily users as it becomes a laid-back “livechill” group alternative to grueling spectacles on live broadcasting apps like Facebook Live. It’s since shortly climbed into the top five iOS apps and raised $50 million led by Sequoia.

Messenger group movie talk works a little differently, but with a similar design. Instead of simply logging into an ever-present movie talk room that notifies friends like on Houseparty, you deliberately select friends or a group text thread to invite to a movie call.

Once in, up to four Messenger users can share big slices of the screen, while Houseparty accommodates 8. Inbetween four and six callers, the Messenger screen switches to a gallery format, with whoever is speaking taking up the bulk of the screen with little thumbnails of everyone else at the bottom. And everyone beyond the very first six up to fifty callers will only be able to listen, speak, and send content but won’t show up in the movie gallery.

By embracing group movie talk, Messenger becomes more of a communication destination rather than just a sporadically used instrument. Along with its Active Now feature, we could see it becoming more of its own full-fledged real-time social network, while Facebook decent becomes a hub for consuming existing content.