### WhatsApp Status Updates: The New Close Friends Feature on the Horizon
Although the majority of U.S. users have yet to utilize—or even encountered—WhatsApp Status Updates, Meta has recently announced that this feature is now utilized by 1.5 billion individuals daily across the globe. In the near future, WhatsApp will adopt a concept from Instagram by introducing a Close Friends feature.
If you’re not acquainted with WhatsApp Status, it functions similarly to Instagram Stories, allowing users to post images and videos that vanish after 24 hours. For the past few years, Instagram users have benefitted from a Close Friends feature, enabling them to choose certain individuals to share updates with, rather than broadcasting to their entire followers list.
As reported by WABetaInfo, Meta is gearing up to extend that same capability to the 1.5 billion daily WhatsApp Status users, who presently have the option to select from:
– **“My Contacts,”** which distributes the update to their full contact list;
– **“My Contacts Except…,”** which sends the update to all their contacts, excluding particular individuals;
– **“Only Share With…,”** which shares the update exclusively with chosen contacts.
While numerous users currently rely on the “Only Share With…” choice as an unofficial Close Friends list, they will soon have both functionalities, allowing for enhanced flexibility regarding who can view each update.
#### Here’s How It’ll Function
According to findings from WABetaInfo in the latest TestFlight version, users will have the ability to form a specific Close Friends list within the existing privacy settings menu. When posting a new Status update, users will be able to either share it with their entire contact list or confine it to the selected group of closer friends.
Similar to Instagram, these updates will be visually marked with a differently colored ring around them, indicating to these contacts that they are viewing an update shared only with a select group of friends rather than a wider audience. Furthermore, the list itself will remain private, ensuring that individuals won’t receive notifications if they are added or removed.
Have you ever made use of WhatsApp Status updates? Share your thoughts in the comments.
