Facebook has started testing Hotline, a way to chat with many people at once via voice and video. The conversations are recorded and the host receives an MP3 and an MP4 of the conversation afterwards.
Hotline is open to US users, but not yet to users from the Benelux. In the service, hosts can designate a number of people as speakers or questioners, Techcrunch says. The rest listen as an audience. This makes the concept somewhat similar to audio chat app Clubhouse. It has been known for some time that Facebook is working on such a feature. In addition to Facebook, Twitter already has live audio chat via Spaces, while Discord also has a similar feature.
Logging into the service works via Twitter and SMS. People who are present during a conversation can ask questions in text, after which the host can give them the floor. Then they can ask the question with audio, although there is already a toggle in the interface to also turn on video.
Hotline calls are recorded by default. Afterwards, hosts receive an MP3 file to distribute as a podcast, for example, or an MP4 to use as a video on social media. It is not yet known when Hotline will be available to users outside the US. It is also unknown how long the test will take.