Groups are one of the most used and well-known features of Telegram. However, do not get confused with the groups of other platforms: they are different
According to many, they are bitter rivals trying to share the “cake” of instant messaging. A reality so obvious that, when WhatsApp is down, the number of Telegram users suddenly shoots upwards. Looking at it from another point of view, however, we can say that WhatsApp and Telegram could not be more different.
For some time now, in fact, the paths of the two platforms have diverged: on the one hand, the WhatsApp team of developers has perfected the product, becoming the benchmark in the field of instant messaging; on the other hand, Telegram has both strengthened its communication tools, and integrated features, becoming a “holistic” platform more similar to the Chinese WeChat. A sort of hybrid between a browser and an “alternative” operating platform from which the most loyal users find it increasingly difficult to detach themselves.
There are several tools or functions that have accelerated this transition of Telegram towards a broader horizon. There are, for example, chatbots that have increasingly taken on the forms and functioning of applications. Or the groups that, despite their name, have little to do with those to which we are accustomed on WhatsApp.
How Telegram groups work
From update to update, Telegram developers have increasingly improved the tools available to users. At present, the platform created by Pavel Durov allows you to choose between groups, supergroups and lists. The first ones are the most similar to those also present on WhatsApp; the second ones are an enlarged version (they come to contain up to 100 thousand users) of the first ones and have allowed Telegram to establish itself also as a platform dedicated to professionals and office colleagues; the third ones, instead, are “one-way” communication channels.
The functioning of groups, net of the different functions and tools they make available, is quite basic and does not differ too much from that of a “normal” chat between two users. In groups and supergroups, all users can converse with each other, exchange files and images (with a limit of 1.5 gigabytes in size), add Telegram bots; enable smart notifications and much more.
Telegram Lists, on the other hand, have no terms of comparison within other messaging platforms. Essentially, it’s a normal group with one “limitation”: messages can only be sent by those who created the list or those who administer it, while “normal” users can only receive.