Facebook-owned WhatsApp recently announced that they would be rolling out a new Snapchat clone 'Status' feature on the eve of their 8th anniversary starting 24th February. Faithful to their words, the company started rolling out the feature for all the Android, iOS, and Windows Phone users.
With this addition, all the Facebook-owned entities will have the features that are present in the rival platform, Snapchat. Starting today, the users who have updated their WhatsApp application on their phones can send photos, GIF's, and videos as their Status to share the present moment of their life.
That said, users can now say goodbye to the old statuses such as 'Available, 'Busy,' etc. and can replace them with images, videos, and gifs. The posted status will disappear after 24 hours, and people can reply to your status, much like what we have seen with Instagram Stories.
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The WhatsApp Status feature is not a new one and was earlier seen on image sharing platform, Instagram as 'Instagram Stories.' Nevertheless, WhatsApp has more users than Instagram, and that might be the reason why Facebook made the decision to roll out the feature to WhatsApp as well.
Same as the case with Instagram's Status feature, you can customise the privacy settings in WhatsApp as well. You can manually choose the people to see your status. Furthermore, after posting a status, you can check how many people viewed your status, which is also present in Instagram
Hike messaging app, WhatsApp's rival in the instant messaging platform has already rolled out the same feature nearly three months ago, but never got users attention. However, in Hike messaging platform, users can only share photos and videos, but not GIFs.
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To recall, Facebook some years ago tried to acquire Snapchat, but that did not happen. Later on, the company bought Instagram and WhatsApp and now they are adding the features that are present in its rival platform.
The update is rolling out gradually and will take some time to reach your phone. If you still did not receive the feature, just head over to your respective app store and check if there's any update for WhatsApp and update the application, if any.
What do you think of this new 'Status' feature from WhatsApp? Did you like it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
