Meeting your friends for a virtual happy hour or game night is an easy way to stay connected when you can't hang IRL. There are plenty of ways to get in some virtual face time, and now you can add one more to that list. Facebook is launching new Messenger Rooms, a video conferencing feature that'll make it easier to connect with your friends and family.

1. Facebook to launch ‘virtual dating’ over Messenger for Facebook Dating users. Or decline the offer via a pop-up that appears. Connected in a video chat powered by Facebook Messenger in.
2. To use chat you must be logged into your Facebook account. It is usually found on the right hand side of your screen and could be minimised as per the image below or showing a list of all your friends as contacts.

The social media company unveiled Messenger Rooms on Friday, April 24. The feature began rolling out on Friday in some countries, and it will be available for the rest of the world, including the United States, in the coming weeks. So if you don't see it yet, just hold tight. Messenger Rooms will allow you to video chat with friends by starting a room using Messenger or Facebook with your app or on your desktop.

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Once the feature is fully released, you will be able to video call up to 50 people with no time limit. This might sound familiar to the Zoom Meetings you've been popping into to virtually celebrate birthdays or attend work meetings, and TBH, it seems like Messenger Rooms will have very similar offerings to Zoom, like virtual backgrounds and the ability to use filters in your video chat. One of the big differences appears to be that Messenger Rooms will offer all of its features for free. Facebook also plans to add Instagram, Portal, and WhatsApp integrations.

When Messenger Rooms are released, you'll be able to choose whether only select Facebook friends can join the room or anyone with a link can enter. You can also remove people from the call or lock a room completely. If you're using Messenger, just select the video chat icon on the app or head to the People tab. If you're using Facebook, you can start and share a room on Facebook through News Feed, Groups, or Events so that people can drop in.

On News Feed, people can see which of their friends are in a Room, as well as which Groups or Events are hosting Rooms they've been invited to. Closed and locked rooms will not show up on the News Feed. In Groups, people will be able to see the active video chats if they're not closed or locked. If you create a chat on Group, the default setting is for only Group members to join. If you want someone outside the group to join however, you can make link sharing possible. Multiple rooms can be created for each individual Group. If you're sharing from Event, only one room is allowed per Event. Rooms will initially only be allowed in private Events and not public Events.

If you get invited to a Messenger Room, all you'll need to do is join from your phone or computer.

With the slower rollout, you may have to wait a couple weeks until you see the Messenger Rooms available to you, but once they arrive, you'll have plenty of options to connect with your friends and family.

Messenger Rooms is Facebook’s answer to Zoom. The video calling service allows you to chat with up to 50 people at the same time. Anyone can join a Messenger Room chat, even if they don’t have a Facebook account.

Messenger Rooms borrows a bunch of features from similar video chatting platforms. For instance, you can use virtual backgrounds like in Zoom, apply effects and filters to your face, share your screen with others on the call, lock your chat room like in Houseparty, and more.

In this article, we’ll guide you on how you can create Messenger Rooms from various Facebook-owned platforms.

How to create Facebook Messenger Rooms on the Messenger app

• Open the Facebook Messenger app.
• Click on the “People” tab and tap on the “Create a Room” option.
• When you’re creating a Messenger Room, Facebook will give you the option of creating an open link that anyone — even non-Facebook members — can access. If you want to limit participation to Facebook users, you can select the “Only people on Facebook” option from the “Who can join” tab.
• Once you’ve selected your audience permissions, tap on the “Share Link” button, and send the created link to other participants via email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Slack, or any other preferred platform.

Also read:10 best messenger apps and chat apps for Android!

When the room is live, people with the link will be able to see your name and profile photo, and that you’re in the room. This could also include people who you’re not friends with on Facebook, depending on who you’ve shared the link with.

How to create Messenger Rooms on the Facebook app

You can also start and share Messenger Rooms on the Facebook app through your News Feed, Groups, or Events pages.

The video chat options here are largely the same as Messenger, apart from a few settings. For instance, the link-sharing settings remain the same and you can choose who gets to join your room in the same way as Messenger. However, unlike in Messenger, you can schedule when to make your room go live through the “Start Time” setting. This could be very handy if you’re hosting a live concert or webinar using the service.

Here are all the ways you can create Messenger Rooms through the Facebook app.

Create Messenger Room through News Feed

• Scroll to the Rooms button on the homepage.
• Tap on “Create” below your profile picture.
• When you create a room, you can add a room activity, choose who can discover your room, and add a start time. You can always edit these settings later.
• To choose who is invited, tap the setting for the same. Now tap next to “Friends” to share with all your Facebook friends. You can also tap on specific people or allow link sharing.
• Once you’ve chosen all the participants, hit “Save.”

You can read more about setting up a start time and more here.

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Create Messenger Room in a Facebook Group

• Tap on “Groups” in the left menu from your News Feed.
• Select the group where you want to create a Messenger Room.
• Tap the camera icon on top of the group page.
• Enter a room activity, choose an emoji, and hit “Save.”
• After this, tap “Create,” write something about the room, and post it to the group.

There’s also another way of creating Messenger Rooms in groups if you’re still on the classic Facebook design. Check here for instructions.

How to use Messenger Rooms on the desktop?

If you want to use Messenger Rooms to share your screen with other participants, you’ll have to download the Facebook Messenger app on your Windows PC or Mac.

The desktop app is obviously more helpful if there are a large number of participants in a room and you need a larger screen to view them all at once. You can create Messenger Rooms directly from your desktop app. However, you won’t be able to use filters, effects, virtual backgrounds, or call scheduling through the desktop version of Messenger.

How to change privacy settings for Facebook Messenger Rooms

Just like Zoom, you have multiple ways of ensuring privacy and safety of calls made using Facebook Messenger Rooms. The most basic precautionary measure that Messenger Rooms deploys is that the creator of the room needs to be present in order for a call to begin. Call creators also have the power to remove individual participants at any time. The following are all the privacy and safety measures you can take while using Facebook Messenger Rooms.

• Locking: Call admins can lock or unlock a room once a call begins. If a room is locked, no one else can join, except for admins.
• Removing a participant: You remove individual participants by tapping the “Remove” button next to their names.
• Reporting: You can report a room name or submit feedback about a room if you believe it violates Facebook’s community standards.
• Blocking: You can block anyone on Facebook or Messenger. When someone you’ve blocked is logged into Facebook or Messenger, they won’t be able to join a room you’re in and you won’t be able to join theirs.

If you’re hosting a video call and waiting for people to join, you also have a cool option to leave the room till others join in. You can access the option by pressing the X icon on the top left corner of the call screen. Here, you can choose to leave and come back later or simply end the call.

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How to use virtual backgrounds on Facebook Messenger Rooms

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If you want to use effects, filters, or virtual backgrounds, you can tap the window where you see yourself and an array of options will appear at the bottom of your screen.

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So that’s everything you need to know about using Facebook’s new Messenger Rooms service. Not interested in the service? Here are some alternative video calling apps you might want to check out.