Popular instant-messaging app Telegram is planning to introduce a new ad feature. It will be called Sponsored Messages. The feature will allow Telegram users to promote their channels and bots. The company said that the new feature will be shown on large public channels. Channels having more than 1,000 members will get to see the new feature.
It will be based on the public channels’ topic where they are shown. The company assured that users’ data will not be compromised. Their data will not be mined. Even user data will not be analyzed by the company. The feature is currently in the testing phase. It is available to limited users in the US market.
The company has plans to share the revenue with the admins of the channels. It said that once the feature is fully rolled out and the basic infrastructure costs are covered, it will start sharing the revenue with admins. Telegram said that the feature will not appear in users’ chat lists, private chats, or group chats. The company is hopeful that the new feature will help support the growth.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov assured users that there will be no ads in chats. Also, there will be no targeted ads. He reiterated that the company is committed to user privacy and that their data will not be used for ads. He added that Telegram is the only platform that remains more ad-free than its competitors.
Telegram has emerged as a leading instant messaging platform because of its end-to-end encryption policy. In October, Telegram said that it surpassed 1 billion installs on the Play Store. The recent Facebook outage is believed to have contributed to the surge.
Telegram was even the fifth most downloaded app in October in the non-gaming category. Meanwhile, Telegram is rolling out an update with several new features. It includes a new interactive emoji, read receipts feature, and more. Users can now select animated background themes for chats.
Carolyn is a technology graduate and loves to write about anything related to technology as well as writes in others sectors. Carolyn is a professional writer with over 7 years of experience. Initially starting off as a programmer, Carolyn decided to combine her knowledge about technology and writing and that’s how she joined Reporter Expert.