Changing the Theme for Individual Chats - Telegram Beta

In Telegram for Android 8.0.1 Beta, you can change the theme for individual chats. In private messages, each participant can change the theme and it will change for both sides. In groups and channels, the administrator changes the topic for everyone. Chat participants and channel subscribers can also change the theme, but only for themselves, locally, for this you need to click on the service notification about changing the chat theme. At the moment, the theme changing button is only available in personal chats, but it doesn't change the theme due to server restrictions. It will be enabled closer to the release.

The Call Button in Profile Header - Telegram Beta

In Telegram for Android 8.0.1 Beta, the call button moved from the context menu to the profile header. There is still no confirmation before the call.

Who Read my Message in the Telegram Group Chat - Telegram Beta

In Telegram for Android 8.0.1 Beta, you can find out who read the message in the group from now on. Voice and video messages will receive a list of those who not just saw them in the chat, but also who played and viewed them. Unlike macOS, the Android client allows you to view the list of viewers even at the service message about the beginning of a voice chat.

GIF Contest - Round 2 of the GIF contest starts now

Dates: 8 Sept - 8 Nov (23:59 Dubai time)

Prize fund: $50,000
Who can take part: Everyone! Even if you didn't participate in Round 1.

The task is similar: create between 10 and 100 GIF-style reaction videos examples here that express emotions similar to these emoji:

😂😘👍😨👋
😍😡🥳😳🙄
😎👎😭🥺😐
🤦🤷‍♂️😏🤔😒

💩🤯👏😱😅
🤝😞👌💋☝️
😈🧐🤣😢🥶
🤬🤢😴🤭💪

In Round 2, you must create reaction videos from iconic and popular movies, series, cartoons, TV shows, etc. examples All reaction videos must meet the technical requirements below.

Technical requirements:

1. Format: MP4, no sound.
2. Aspect ratio: anything between 1:1 – 4:3 ✅ good examples.
- GIFs must not include stripes that make a widescreen video fit in the required format bad example.
- Sides must not be squished to fit the aspect ratio (bad example.
3. Max. duration: 5 seconds.
4. Image quality. Aim for top video quality ✅ good examples, ❌ bad examples.

- No grainy videos with noticeable pixelation, etc.
- No blurry, overexposed videos, etc.
- Cut content carefully: GIFs must not jitter animation too short or jump animation contains irrelevant frames.

5. Max. size: 300 KB. Aim for the smallest size necessary to maintain the level of quality described above (likely around 70-300KB).

6. On-screen text is not required. If you use on-screen text, you must use consistent fonts on all GIFs in your submission. Please keep your source files, because we may ask you to edit the text if your submission wins a prize.

7. Expressiveness and relevance to emoji. All GIFs must be relevant to their chosen emoji and express the emotion clearly. (If you're not sure whether the video shows 😑,😡,🙄 or 😳 – it's probably not a very good fragment).

We will explain how to submit your reaction videos later, stay tuned to @contest.

Reaction videos created in this contest will be watermarked with links to the public channels of their creators – and potentially suggested to Telegram users.

Good luck!

Telegram Facing $220,000 in Fines from Russian Authorities

Western social media giants Telegram, Facebook and Twitter will be called into a Moscow court this month where they will face fines of nearly $1 million for refusing to remove "prohibited content," Russian media reported Saturday.

The companies will face a total of nine administrative offenses during a hearing to held in the Tagansky district of Moscow on Sept. 14, the government news agency Tass reported.

Under the charges, Facebook is facing five charges and is looking at a possible fine of around $550,000 while Twitter and Telegram face two charges each with possible fines totaling more than $400,000.

Telegram 8.0 Update Allows Unlimited Viewers to Watch Live stream

Telegram was launched just over 8 years ago and today we are continuing our tradition of monthly updates with version 8.0. This update brings live streams with unlimited viewers to groups and channels, options to remove captions from media and hide sender names when forwarding, an easy way to jump to the next unread channel without going back to your chat list, an improved sticker panel, new animated emoji and more.

Unlimited Live Streams

Our previous update made Group Video Calls a powerful tool for live broadcasts — and now their audience is unlimited (except by the popularity of your channel, or the population of Earth, whichever is more relevant in your case).

Start a Live Stream in a channel or a Video Chat in a group – both now support unlimited viewers. The power to run your own TV station is here, right in your pocket.

To begin, tap 'Video Chat' (in Groups) or 'Live Stream' (in Channels) on the profile page of a community where you are an admin.

The viewers of your Live Stream can also raise their hand and join your broadcast if you allow them to speak.

Flexible Forwarding

Forwarding has become a much more relaxing experience. Tap the 'Forward Message' label above the message bar to open a preview window, showing how the messages will look when they are sent – along with several customization options.

You can choose to hide the sender's name or hide captions on media messages. You can also deselect messages you don't want to send or change the recipient if you tapped the wrong chat.

Jump to Next Channel

There are millions of one-to-many channels on Telegram that users follow for news, events, and content.

To keep up with the news easily, you can now scroll through the channels you follow without going back to your chat list. When you reach the bottom of a channel, pull up to go to the next unread channel.

If you have organized your chat list with Folders or Archived Chats, the app will follow the structure you have set up: channels in the current folder, then within each folder, then those left in All Chats and the Archive. Simply open a channel from your Studies folder to read them all without getting distracted by Memes — and vice versa.

Trending Stickers

Thanks to an open platform and thousands of free, high-quality stickers in the sticker directory, there's a perfect sticker for every situation. This update makes it easier to find the one.

Trending Stickers are now shown above ‘Recently Used’ in your sticker panel. Tap 'Add' to save a pack for the future — the trending sticker section is one of the few things in this world that gets updated more often than the Telegram apps.

When you scroll through your packs at the top of the panel, the thumbnails expand and show the names of your sticker packs.

Telegram for Android also got larger previews for sticker suggestions. To get suggestions, enter one emoji in the input field. To see more suggested stickers, pull upward on the suggestions panel.

If you have a particular thing in mind and don't have it among your sets, type a word in the search field to find matches from the sticker directory. Try 'yellow', 'animal', 'dog', etc.

Choosing a Sticker

Similar to 'typing…' or 'recording a voice message', the apps now show a 'choosing a sticker' status at the top of the chat — so you know that your chat partner is still there, just looking for the perfect animated response.

Unread Comment Counters

Many channels have comments enabled for their posts so that subscribers can interact and share their thoughts. We've recently had a great chance to test this with thousands of birthday wishes — thank you all for your support.

Just like with chats, when you open a comment thread that has new messages, a counter will now appear showing the number of unread comments.

New Animated Emoji

This month we asked ourselves: “Should we stop animating more and more emoji with each update?” After a heated discussion we arrived at this answer: “Probably not.” Send a message with a single emoji to get one of these new masterpieces in a chat:

That's it for today — and we already have some cool stuff in development for the next update. See you there!

August 31, 2021
The Telegram Team

Telegram Crosses 1 Billion Downloads Globally, With India as the Largest Market

Telegram has become the latest app to surpass the mark of one billion downloads globally, according to data shared by Sensor Tower. The Dubai-headquartered app, which was launched in late 2013, surpassed the milestone on Friday, the mobile insight firm told TechCrunch. As is the case with the app’s chief rival, WhatsApp, India is the largest market for Telegram. The world’s second-largest internet market represents approximately 22% of its lifetime installs, Sensor Tower said.

“[India is] followed by Russia and Indonesia, which represent about 10% and 8% of [all installs], respectively. The app’s installs accelerated in 2021, reaching about 214.7 million installs in the first half of 2021, up 61% year-over-year from 133 million in H1 2020,” it added.

It’s worth noting that the number of installs doesn’t equate to the app’s active userbase. Telegram had about 500 million monthly active users as of early this year, for instance. But the surge in downloads, which coincides with WhatsApp’s poor handling of relaying its privacy policies to its massive userbase, nonetheless suggests that Telegram has enjoyed some additional attention in recent quarters.

Telegram, which earlier this year raised over $1 billion, is the fifteenth app worldwide to have been downloaded 1 billion times or more, Sensor Tower told TechCrunch. Other apps on the list include WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify and Netflix, according to Sensor Tower. (Mobile research firms don’t track the installs of most Google apps that come pre-installed on Android devices.)

Advertising from Telegram or new tools for channel admins?

In Telegram for Android and macOS Beta, you can see a new type of message: "sponsored". The message is very similar to the advertising that was previously promised Pavel Durov, but in fact it may also be a tool for buying and selling advertising in Telegram channels.