WhatsApp brings back the About feature to supplement statuses
If you are a seasoned user of WhatsApp, brace yourself for a blast from the past. The company has just announced that it is bringing back one of its earliest features in a new and improved form.
What is returning is the About feature, a simple text field that can be used to share information about yourself, your availability, or anything else you can think of. It is not entirely dissimilar to the Notes feature of Instagram.
In some ways, Notes serves much the same function as status updates in WhatsApp, but there is scope for rather more flexibility. Talking about the return of this feature, WhatsApp says:
For those of you that have used WhatsApp from the very start, you’ll remember About was our first feature. Even before we brought the world private and secure messaging, we made it simple for you to quickly share what’s up in your life. Today we're reintroducing and improving About, making it more visible, timely, and easier to use.
For those days when you’re free one minute but busy the next - About can tell others why you can’t talk or what you do want to talk about with just an emoji and a short phrase.
There is more to About than just sharing snippets of text, however. Highlighting some of the extra functionality that can be found here, WhatsApp says:
About will now be easier to spot at the top of 1-1 chats and on your profile. You can also reply directly to people’s About by tapping on it in a chat. About will expire after one day, but you can also choose for it to disappear faster or keep it around for longer at a time of your choosing. Just go to Settings and tap ‘Set About’ to choose your timer.
You can decide who sees your About. You can set it to be seen only by your contacts, or choose to make it more widely visible in your privacy settings.
The rollout of About is currently underway, and as WhatsApp makes no reference to regional availability, we can only assume that this is a global rollout. If you don’t yet see the feature in your account, you should not have to wait too long before it appears.
Does this feel like a useful addition to WhatsApp? If this is something that appeals to you, how do you envision using it?