Facebook will let you make group chats across Instagram and Messenger

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Facebook will now let you start cross-app group chats between Messenger and Instagram, the company announced. The update is a big step forward in Facebook’s ambitions to make its apps work better with each other. To be able to use the cross-app communications, you’ll have to opt in, and Facebook says that “over 70% of eligible people on Instagram have updated to the new Messenger experience.” The company is bringing other new features to the messaging apps in addition to cross-app group messaging. Polls will be available in group DMs on Instagram and in cross-app chats so you can. Facebook has added group typing indicators to Messenger, so you can see when multiple people are drafting a message. And you can now use Facebook’s Watch Together feature to watch videos from your Instagram feed with your friends. Facebook is also adding new chat themes to Messenger, including a “cottagecore” theme, one inspired by J Balvin’s latest album, and an astrology theme.


Clubhouse finally lets you record conversations

Clubhouse is getting a bunch of new features; including one many people have wanted: in-app recording. Starting in October, app users will be able to record a room, save it to their profile and club, or download it. Clubhouse is calling the feature “replays.” Creators and moderators are the ones who can record, and they can toggle that option on or off. Rooms must be public to be recorded. Along with full recordings, users will be able to create 30-second shareable clips in rooms that allow it. The app is also gaining a search feature so people can type a keyword or name and receive the rooms, people, clubs, and bios that match. Finally, spatial audio is also now coming to Android devices after rolling out to iOS devices in August. To create a clip, users can tap on a scissor icon that will capture the past 30 seconds of audio that can then be locally downloaded and shared widely. The clips tool might draw more people in and bring them to the app to hear the rest of an ongoing conversation. This brings Clubhouse more up to speed with Twitter Spaces, which allows recording, as does Spotify’s competitor Greenroom.

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