WhatsApp has introduced a new sticker pack called ‘Together at Home’ to reflect the moods of people staying indoors due to the lockdown. Available in English, Hindi and several other languages, these stickers also promote safety and social distancing.
Created in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Together at Home sticker pack has innovative images ranging from a person working on a laptop wearing pyjamas to depict the new work from home behaviours as well as some unique ones that depict social distancing through “air high fives” and group video calling.
The instant messaging giant owned by Facebook had introduced these stickers two years ago as an added feature in group communication and has since become an important part of how users express themselves on the social platform.
The new collection also includes stickers that shows a person binge-watching television on bed while another can be seen practicing yoga in the company of a dog. There are some more that remind people of the need to wash hands and keeping their hands away from the face etc. There is even one of a lady using a pair of binoculars to snoop on a neighbour.
The Together at home stick pack is available within WhatsApp and can be downloaded for free by users. Besides English and Hindi, the sticker pack is also available in a host of foreign languages including Arabic, Russian and Spanish. There is however no information about the company launching it in local Indian languages.
WhatsApp has been making constant efforts to enhance its utility for people working from home during the current lockdown. The latest beta launch allows users to double the calling limit from four to eight on WhatsApp groups. This increase helps the social messaging platform to be far more versatile and useful though there is still a long way to go before it can compete with the likes of Skype or Zoom. While Skype allows up to 50 people in a group chat, Zoom can take up to 100 members into a single room.
The increasing incidence of work from home has resulted in a major spike in the use of online video conferencing platforms though in recent times Zoom has faced a lot of challenges due to privacy and security issues with governments, academic bodies and enterprises barring its employees from using it.
The situation presents just the right sort of conditions for WhatsApp to go beyond the individuals and become a chat or instant messaging platform for the business community, given that it already claims end-to-end encryption of the conversations.
