WhatsApp to get new animated stickers, integration with Messenger soon

WhatsApp is planning to add four new sticker packs to its WhatsApp Store soon. These sticker packs will be available in the company's Android and iOS based apps.

WhatsApp rolled out a sticker pack called Playful Piyomaru on its WhatsApp Store last week. (Bloomberg)

WhatsApp last week rolled out a new feature called animated stickers on to its Android and iOS based app. While rolling out this feature the company had included just one sticker pack called Playful Piyomaru on its WhatsApp Store. Now, word is that the company is planning to add more to the list.

As per a report by WABetaInfo, the blog that tracks development in the Facebook-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp is planning to add four more sticker packs to its store. The list includes Chummy Chum Chums, Rico's Sweet Life, Bright Days and Moody Foodies. These sticker packs will be available on both, that is the company's Android and iOS based apps.

The blog site says these stickers are available for download on the WhatsApp Store. However, if users are unable to see in the WhatsApp Store yet they will be able to do so in the coming days.

In addition to adding new animated stickers to WhatsApp, Facebook, which also owns Messenger, is planning to bring WhatsApp integration to Facebook Messenger. Last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would interoperability among the apps in the company's ambit. We saw one manifestation of this idea in the form of Messenger Rooms. The other is expected to be WhatsApp's integration into Messenger.

The blog site said that Facebook was creating some tables in ‘a local database, in order to manage messages and services with other WhatsApp users.' This would enable the company to understand details such as if a WhatsApp contact is blocked, sounds of push notifications, members of a specific group and profile pictures of the contact among other things. Contents of chat, however, would remain end-to-end encrypted and hence hidden from the company. This would allow users of two different apps, in this case Messenger and WhatsApp to communicate with each other without leaving their respective platforms. That said, the feature is in early stages of development at the moment and so it is difficult to say how the feature would work at this time.

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