WhatsApp is opening up to cross-platform messaging 

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WhatsApp has grown a lot in popularity in the past few years, especially in Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. It’s also locked in, unable to message other messaging platforms.

That might be changing, as WABetaInfo noticed that the platform is working on a new Third-party chats section. 

That would join the long list of changes to the platform recently, including HD photo and video support, a new schedule group call feature, a screen-sharing feature, and more.

Now, it looks like WhatsApp is taking steps to open up to other messaging services to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.

Third-party chats coming to WhatsApp

The Digital Markets Act passed by the European Commission is forcing big tech companies to open up their products, making it difficult for them to capitalize as a monopoly. 

Recently, the Commission has marked multiple large online platforms as “gatekeepers.”

This list is full of well-known names like Apple’s iMessage. Meta is on the list for Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and its ads business and Marketplace.

Being on this list means Meta needs to open up its services to third-party services, including messaging services.

It would mean people using different messaging services can send you messages on WhatsApp without installing and signing up on the platform. 

That said, the feature hasn’t been rolled out yet. It’s still in the beta stage, and we are yet to see how Meta implements this feature in light of the regulations. And we are also not sure if Meta will expand this feature outside of Europe.

Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion to our Twitter or Facebook.

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