Video Messages and Telescope

We know you love the speed and simplicity of voice messages on Telegram. Starting today, you can also send video messages – just as swiftly:

To send a video message, go to any chat on Telegram and tap the mic icon to switch to camera mode. Now all you need to do is tap and hold the camera icon and record a video message. When you’re done, just release the recording button to dispatch your message — and it will arrive in the blink of an eye.

Video messages are so fast because Telegram compresses them and sends them even as you record them. By the way, if holding the button seems like too much work, you can lock the camera in recording mode by swiping up. This also works with voice messages now (here's one for you, cab drivers).

Video messages are automatically downloaded and autoplayed by default (you can change this in Settings if you’re on a data diet though) and generally feel and act like voice messages – on visual steroids.

Picture in Picture

While watching a video message, you can freely browse your other chats – the video will pop up in a corner and continue playing. You can move it around the screen and pause it from anywhere in Telegram. Cool, eh? Well, there's more:

Meet Telescope

Lots of popular folks address their fans via public channels on Telegram. Video messages will make their connection to fans more direct and intimate than ever. But we want to kick this up another notch.

Today we are launching Telescope, a dedicated video hosting platform for those who use videos to communicate with their audiences (here's one for you, blogger people!)

With Telescope, public video messages can go viral beyond the Telegram ecosystem. Telescope hosts autoplayed round videos of up to 1 minute in duration – the same format we use for Telegram video messages. And yes, you heard that right, you don't need a Telegram account to view them.

Every public channel on Telegram now has a telesco.pe URL, such as telesco.pe/channel_name, where all of its video messages are available to the world wide web and the wide, wide world.

A Telescope Channel

Whenever you post a video message to a public channel, it will also be uploaded to Telesco.pe and have a public URL there.

Share Telescope Videos

With Telescope, even those users who don’t have Telegram installed will be able to enjoy your public video messages and share them on Twitter or Facebook. As a result, this content will generate more views. And who would refuse more views these days, hmm?

This was just 1/3 of Telegram 4.0. Keep reading to learn more about Payments for Bots and the new Instant View Platform.

May 18, 2017,
The Telegram Team

P.S. Our founder has this weird urge to keep launching platforms that start with “Tele-”. Be sure to check out Telegraph, the publishing platform we launched last year.