It’s probably safe to say that it was largely thanks to Facebook that “reactions” became a popular feature. Instead of simply “liking” a post, users could “react” to it by using laughing emojis, a sad face emoji, heart emojis, and so on. So it’s not surprising that the company is now bringing those features to WhatsApp.
According to a post by WABetaInfo on Twitter, it looks like WhatsApp is getting ready to launch reactions on its messaging platform. From what we can see, it will be similar in concept to what’s already available on Facebook.
WhatsApp is readying message reactions (secured by end-to-end encryption) in a new upcoming update of WhatsApp beta for Android and iOS. 👍❤️😂😮😢🙏 pic.twitter.com/o9CMW6pnsN
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) February 2, 2022
Even though Facebook did help to popularize the concept, for some reason WhatsApp has been a bit slow on the uptake. We say this because some of Meta’s other products and services such as Facebook Messenger and Instagram already support reactions. Plus there are plenty of third-party messenger apps like Discord and LINE that also support reactions.
We’re not sure why WhatsApp took this long to get the feature, especially when you consider how massive the app is, but we suppose better late than never! There is no mention of when the feature will be rolled out to users, but it might be something to look out for in the near future.
