Facebook Messenger Lets 50 Friends Get In on a Call

Facebook last week announced that it had rolled out group calling worldwide in its Messenger app. Members engaged in a group conversation can tap the phone icon on their screen to initiate a group call. They can manage individual participants on the next screen. Members of a group who miss the initial call can tap the phone icon in the group chat to join the call while it's in progress.

The feature allows up to 50 participants and is available only in the latest version of Messenger.

Move Over, Phone Carriers

The announcement likely will cause concern among telecommunications companies because "if you consider that social media's a form of asynchronous communication, then Facebook is the largest telecom on the planet, with about 1.3 billion subscribers," observed Michael Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

"Now add synchronous communications -- that is, communications in real time -- and Facebook's beginning to come into focus as the next paradigm of communications: async and sync combined," he told TechNewsWorld. "This could be a game changer."

Mobile apps Line, Kakao flourishing among young Asians

L: Forget Facebook and Twitter.

Two of Asia's biggest social media players, Kakao Talk and Line, are growing by making mobile messaging apps an integral part of the lives of young Asians who prefer to communicate more privately instead of shouting out in virtual arenas and risking troubles with trolls -- or disclosing aspects of their lives to their parents they'd rather not share.

Kakao Talk is the top messenger app in South Korea, with more users than Facebook or Twitter. People use it to hail cabs and transfer money, advancing toward a cashless society. Even South Korean government officials prefer Kakao chat rooms for communicating with colleagues as opposed to email.

In Japan, where Line users outnumber those on Facebook or Twitter, people buy cute digital stickers to link to messages and use the app to search for music and jobs.

In doing so, the apps are serving as test beds for digital services, demonstrating ways the latest trends in technology and communication can be integrated with daily life in the 21st century.

Above all, they are making money, although some of their products, such as digital stickers, would be a hard sell in other markets. Silicon Valley investors and tech startups everywhere are watching closely.

Here's a look at Kakao Talk and Line, Asia's top messenger app companies.

KAKAO TALK: Headquartered on the southern island of Jeju, South Korea. The app was released in 2010.

OWNED BY: Kakao, South Korea's No. 2 Internet search engine, which counts former Naver CEO Kim Beom-su as the largest shareholder.

NUMBERS: 48 million active users globally, including 40 million in South Korea. Sales at the owner of Kakao Talk reached 932.2 billion won ($808.5 million) last year.

HITS: Kakao Talk itself and its cute emoticon characters. The company was able to build on the success of Kakao Talk when it launched Kakao Story, an Instagram-like service which was at one point more popular than Facebook among South Koreans. But its user growth has been slowing. The latest big hit is Kakao Taxi, an Uber-like taxi hailing service.