Facebook on Friday announced aseries of new video products, including Messenger Rooms, a consumer-focused video conferencing tool. The new product takes many cues from enterprise tools like Zoom while trying to correct for some of their shortcomings.
Video presence has "emerged as especially important" during theCOVID-19 pandemic, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in remarks streamed on Facebook Live.
"There are a lot of different uses for video presence. There are professional uses, which is a lot of what we've focused on and come to rely on during this period, but in a lot of ways there are even more social uses," Zuckerberg said. "And there are a lot of different products that need get built because the use cases are sometimes subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly different in ways that require different products to optimize and enable people to do what they want."
The CEO identified three distinct product categories: video calling, video rooms and live video.
Video rooms enables users to create a link to a virtual space where other users can drop in. "This is a newer model popularized by enterprise video conferencing tools," Zuckerberg said.
With Messenger Rooms, users can create a "room" from Messenger or Facebook and invite anyone to join, regardless of whether they have an account on Facebook or any other Facebook-owned platforms. Rooms will eventually be able to hold up to 50 people with no time limit.
While enterprise tools like Zoom typically require scheduling a meeting ahead of time, Messenger Rooms lets you share rooms on Facebook through the News Feed, or with Groups or Events, enabling people to just drop in.
The tool is rolling out in some countries this week with the rest of the world seeing it in the coming weeks.
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