You don’t need to call someone and hope it’s a good time or check everyone’s calendar first. Host celebrations, gather a book club or just hang out on the couch with friends. Rooms will soon hold up to 50 people with no time limit. Create a room right from Messenger or Facebook, and invite anyone to join your video call, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. Messenger Rooms make it easy to spend quality time with friends, loved ones and people who share your interests. So to help people feel like they’re together, even when they are - or have to be - physically apart, we’re announcing features across our products that make video chat and live video easier and more natural. Spending time with each other should be spontaneous, not strained. But there’s more to do to make real-time feel real. In many countries, video calling on Messenger and WhatsApp more than doubled, and views of Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos increased significantly in March. Between WhatsApp and Messenger, more than 700 million accounts participate in calls every day.

Lately Facebook has felt the demand for real-time video. Tomorrow, we’ll be turning to more immersive platforms like AR and VR. Today, video helps most of us bridge the distance. Over the years we’ve focused on how to help people feel present with one another even when they’re not in the same place.

Facebook’s products have always been about connecting people.

Facebook messenger website