Days after launching Hello, its new Android phone dialer app, Facebook today announced a new calling feature for Messenger.
Facebook Messenger is gaining video calling in its Android and iOS apps. The feature is rolling out in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the U.K., the U.S., and Uruguay today, with more countries expected to gain the feature in the coming months.
The video calling feature in Messenger works just as you’d expect. When you’re in a text conversation with another person, you can tap the video camera icon at the top of the screen and you’ll begin a video chat, complete with a small screen in the lower right corner that’ll show your video. The app also lets you make cross-platform calls, so you iOS folk can call Android users and vice versa.
Video calling is a more intimate way to communicate with someone compared to text and voice calls, and now that most phones are coming to market with a front-facing camera, it makes sense for Facebook to add video calling support to Messenger.