Telegram announce 400 million users, plans group video calls

Telegram has announced that it has reached 400,000,000 monthly users, up from 300 million a year ago.

Due to the pressure for secure communication from home, the messaging protocol is adding 1.5 million new users every day.

The company’s next major development goal is adding support for group video calling, saying video calls in 2020 are much like messaging in 2013.   That feature is expected later this year, but in the meantime, their apps are adding the following new features.

Better Quizzes

Telegram added Quiz Mode to Telegram Polls back in January, allowing users to flex their trivia muscles. In recent weeks, Telegram witnessed a surge of more serious educational tests and quizzes created using @QuizBot. Today’s update upgrades quizzes with educational features.

You can now add explanations that appear as users respond to quiz questions, helping them learn from their mistakes, or giving them more context. Explanations make Telegram quizzes suitable not only for testing knowledge — but also for spreading it.

When you create a quiz via @QuizBot, you can set a timer for questions. Timers add to the competitive element of Telegram quizzes, which are often used for exam preparation in student group chats. With the new countdown animation, everyone can see how much time they have left.

20,000 Stickers

While Telegram always offered stickers, there wasn’t an easy way to see all the best stickers all at once. The company has now launched a new sticker directory, where you can browse and search the over 20,000 high-quality free Telegram stickers created in the last 5 years.

If you have a particular set in mind, you can find it via search, or if you feel like taking a trip through the Museum of Sticker History, you can scroll through the list and go all the way from today’s trends to the first Sticker Sapiens that walked the earth.

New Attachment Menu on Android

On Android, all sections of the attachment menu are now accessible as expandable layers, making the menu sleek, and easier to use.

macOS Improvements

Users of Telegram for macOS can now access Shared Media straight from the redesigned profile pages. Those who have a lot of Folders may like the new folder sidebar with icons in the style of Telegram Desktop.

It also features an in-app photo editor which now allows you to draw on pictures when sending or editing:

Bullseye

To accompany the animated ? emoji from last update, you can now take a shot at throwing animated darts ? in any chat to see who hits the bullseye first.

€400K for Creators of Educational Tests

With 2 billion students currently away from schools, the world is in dire need of online educational tools. Telegram is contributing to solving this problem by creating a database of educational tests for all subjects and levels. To do that, today they are announcing a crowd-sourcing initiative in which they will distribute EUR 400,000 among creators of educational tests.

To take part, use @QuizBot to create and publish an original educational test on any subject at any difficulty level, in any language. Feel free to choose anything from basic Medieval European History in English to Mikrobiologie für Experten auf Deutsch – and add any media you require to your questions, but make sure all intellectual property rights are respected.

Telegram will publish the quizzes you submit in a searchable directory. Based on their quality and popularity they will then announce the winners in several stages. Submissions for the first stage end on May 15.

Telegram can be found in the app store here.

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[appbox googleplay org.telegram.messenger]

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Via XDA-Dev