Group video-calling services have surged this year, here’s why.

Above: Line: Group Movie Calls

From virtual reality (VR) to self-driving cars, a number of notable technology trends have emerged via 2016. But over the past week, one feature in particular has truly come to the fore: group movie calls.

On Monday, Facebook announced group movie talks for its Messenger app, with support for up to fifty people, tho’ only six people are visible on screen at any given moment. And teen-focused social app Kik also spinned out group movie talk the same day, catering to up to six friends.

Last week, Slack launched video-call support for up to fifteen people, but only from within the desktop app. This was followed a day later by mobile messaging giant Line, which unveiled group movie talk support for up to two hundred people, tho’ only four people are visible on screen at any given time.

Elsewhere, Skype introduced group movie talks for up to twenty five people on Android and iOS back in February, two years after the feature became available on desktop and one year after it landed on clever TVs. And Google Hangouts has long supported group movie calls for up to ten people.

One-to-one movie talk makes sense — it is superb being able to talk with a loved one “face to face” from a remote location and, according to Facebook, more than two hundred forty five million people were already engaging in one-to-one movie talks each month on Messenger.

But is there indeed high request for group movie calls?

Above: Line: Group Movie

That Line would see fit to cater to as many as two hundred people on a single movie call seems kinda ditzy. To circumvent the evident barrier introduced by the limited screen real estate of a mobile phone, Line shows the very first four people to join the call by default, with other participants displayed as profile pictures down the side — users can by hand configure who they see in the movies by dragging a profile picture on top of one of the movies.

It’s difficult to envisage many situations that would require group movie calls for more than a handful of people — in the consumer mobile-messaging field, at least. But nobody is forcing you to hop on a movie call with one hundred ninety nine other people, so it most likely doesn’t matter that much whether you can or not.

A more significant question here, however, is why has there been such a thrust to beef up messaging apps with group movie messaging smarts? There are at least two reasons.

Convergence

The very first — and perhaps more pertinent — reason is that messaging apps have a tendency to converge in terms of features.

With so many different ways to communicate, including SMS, voice calls, movie calls, mobile messaging, and email, people traditionally used different apps for different things. But technology companies want all of your attention, all of the time. Therefore, they have had to attempt to become everything to everyone. The upshot of this is that every social messaging app completes up being harshly the same, give or take.

Facebook realized that messaging apps would be big, which is why it spun Messenger out as a standalone service and acquired WhatsApp for many billions of dollars. Facebook also attempted to buy Snapchat, but Snapchat wasn’t interested, so Facebook had to lodge for copying Snapchat instead.

Facebook has also made no secret of its disdain for old communication devices, such as SMS, that rely on phone numbers to operate. David Marcus, VP of messaging products, gave some notable insights into the company’s thinking on this back in January [emphasis ours]:

SMS and texting came to the fore in the time of spin phones. Now, many of us can do so much more on our phones; we went from just making phone calls and sending basic text-only messages to having computers in our pockets. And just like the spin phone is disappearing, old communication styles are disappearing too.

With Messenger, we suggest all the things that made texting so popular, but also so much more. Yes, you can send text messages, but you can also send stickers, photos, movies, voice clips, GIFs, your location, and money to people. You can make movie and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone’s phone number. You don’t need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger anymore, and it’s also a cross-platform practice – so you can pick up where you left off whether you’re on a desktop computer, a tablet, or your phone.

But SMS still holds many benefits over internet-based services like Facebook. For one, it works with anyone who has a mobile phone number. And cellular networks are more widespread, with fewer “black catches sight of” than 3G or 4G. Put simply, SMS isn’t going the way of the dodo fairly yet, which is why back in June Facebook permitted Messenger users on Android to set the app as their default SMS app, meaning they could access all their messages from within a single app. All of your attention, all of the time.

So how does this all relate to group movie calls? Well, as mobile messaging apps have increasingly converged and opened to voice calls, group voice calls, and movie calls, group movie calls are a natural extension. To differentiate itself from the competition, an app has to suggest something that others don’t, but as soon as it does that, the others go after suit.

WhatsApp introduced movie calls for the very first time last month, but without support for group talks. We can likely expect group movie calls to be added to the mix in the future. Why wouldn’t they? Apple’s FaceTime doesn’t support group movie calls yet, but as it faces enhanced competition from feature-rich alternatives, it is only a matter of time before Apple joins the fray. After all, why force your users to leap to another third-party service for the occasional group movie talk, when you can give them the option of staying cheerfully within their usual environment?

Irrespective of whether people wish to talk one-to-one or in groups of 200, the surge in group movie talk is also indicative of a far broader growth trend across the digital area.

2016: The rise of movie

Facebook Live opened to all iOS users in the U.S. back in January — before expanding to Android the following month — and lets anyone launch a live broadcast directly from within the Facebook mobile app.

Earlier this month, Twitter followed suit, merging Periscope directly into the main Twitter client to simplify live movie broadcasts. Twitter’s movie thrust hasn’t been limited to live broadcasts from its users however, as it has also been working with a number of third parties to expand its professional content. It partnered with Disney to broadcast footage from Rogue One: A Starlet Wars Story, and also ushered in live NFL games and political coverage, supported by dedicated live movie apps for your big screen.

Elsewhere, Meerkat maker Life On Air launched a fresh group movie talk app called Houseparty for Android and iOS, after Meerkat’s popularity waned. And Google launched a fresh one-to-one movie calling app, called Duo, with plans afoot to launch a YouTube Connect livestreaming movie app.

As broadband and mobile internet have improved, companies have moved to embrace fresh high-bandwidth communication conduits. Real-time movie, be it one-way broadcasts or conversations inbetween friends, has been a big breakout trend of 2016. And group movie talks are very much part of that trend.

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