X (former Twitter) could soon get video call functionality

Today, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Linda Yaccarino, confirmed that video calling capabilities will soon be integrated into the platform. This announcement came in right after a designer at the company hinted at the feature via a post on the site, which said, “Just called someone on X,” followed by a four-head exploding emoji.

However, recently appointed Yaccarino didn’t give a whole lot of details regarding the feature or when it could be rolled out. It is expected that the video calling section will be structured in a manner similar to X’s direct messages platform.

Furthermore, it also remains unclear as of now whether video calls on X are going to be a functionality available to the entire user base, or only to those paying for paying for X Premium. The latter is a possibility, bearing in mind how X Premium is needed to access numerous other new features, which have already been rolled out or are in the process of being rolled out on the platform.

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With this, competition on the video calling platform is fast heating up, with multiple industry bigwigs in the space- including Microsoft with Teams and Google Meet, as well as Apple’s FaceTime, and Meta-owned WhatsApp.

WhatsApp also recently introduced landscape mode support for video calls, as well as the ability to share one’s screen on their smartphone, as well as desktop apps, in a bid to further add to its utility and capture the market.

X as an “everything” app

X, as part of its push to become an “everything” app, has placed great emphasis on video content. It recently provided X premium subscribers the ability to post videos up to two hours long on the platform. The feature was very recently employed by Cupertino-based tech giant Apple, to upload and stream an entire episode of “Silo,” a show on Apple TV+.

ALSO READ: X now lets users hide their blue verification badges

The platform is also in the process of releasing a number of other features for premium subscribers, including the ability to publish posts with up to 25,000 characters, run fundraising campaigns as well as send payments. Furthermore, in a Twitter Spaces event in November 2022, Elon Musk also hinted at offering subscribers a high-yield money market account, which would further boost his vision to turn the platform, then Twitter, into an everything app.