Telegram, the cross-platform messenger app, has been further enhancing its experience for its 200+ million users lately. In an interview with Bloomberg, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, spoke about the future of the messaging platform. Here are some of the new changes since we last posted about it.
Supergroup member limits
Earlier on its Twitter account, the Telegram team asked users to keep testing their supergroup limits, and they kept responding by increasing member limits. From 10,000, we now have the ability to have 50,000 members in a supergroup now.
Granular media auto-download
You can now set up your auto-download preferences with granular precision (find the new options in Settings > Data & Storage). For example, you could set Telegram to always download pictures from your girlfriend on any connection, but only auto-download media from groups when you’re on Wi-Fi.
Other changes
Live locations: Similar to the implementation in Google Maps, you can share your location in real time till a specified amount of time.
Saved messages chat: You can archive important messages for future use by simply forwarding it to a saved messages chat.
Search improvements: You can use filters for searching through a chat, and combine them as well. Some parameters available include “from user, date range, and keyword search.”
Secret Chat improvements: Secret chats now use MTProto 2.0 and support sending albums in order.
P2P networks: You can now use P2P networks to connect calls on Telegram as well.
Telegram and Monetization
Durov re-iterated that Telegram is not built for creating a profit. He sees Telegram as a charity that he’ll start to monetize early next year, but only enough to fund expansion. And unlike his earlier creation, VK, which will face political pressure from the Kremlin as long as it’s based in Russia, he said Telegram can’t be bought—at any price.
He also teased some “Big News” slated for next year but was not clear on what it was.
Source:Â Â Bloomberg, Telegram Geeks
