WhatsApp Rolls Out the ‘Photo/Video’ Status Feature For its Web Platform

Nathan Ernest Olupot August 21, 2017

Less than a minute

Facebook-owned; WhatsApp, being the mostly and widely used messaging app globally with over 1 billion daily active users, has finally rolled out its Status feature to its Web platform to all users globally.

Unlike its apps, the WhatsApp Status on Web platform is available with a circular icon next to New Message icon on top. On tapping the Status icon, the color of the background changes to a Black theme (by default), and all your friends statuses will appear in a list format.

The WhatsApp Status for Web will be shared with contacts on the app. Meanwhile the firm confirmed that similar to chats, the status updates are also end-to-end encrypted.

Users can still choose who sees their WhatsApp Status just like the mobile version – in three options are My contacts, My contacts except, and Only share with. However, on first set, the status comes by default allowing your status to be visible to all contacts.

Therefore, you can now upload short clips/videos or photos to share with you friends and will later disappear after 24-hours.

Notably, WhatsApp rolled out the photo/video status earlier this year which almost caused a social media outage after media reports reported that users were discontented with the update and criticized the company for copying Instagram and SnapChat. It was until then the firm decided bring back the old text-based status, allowing users to use both status.

Editor’s Note: This article has been written, and contains inputs from NDTV news.