Publication date: 08 Feb 2023

In February 2023, Telegram announced the release of 10 innovations. At 3S.INFO, we not only studied them in detail, but also found out the most interesting: Telegram has prepared 11 official updates!

• At the end of 2022, Telegram overtook WhatsApp in terms of user traffic for the first time!

Emoji in Telegram: from catalogue to avatar creation

10. Creating avatars using stickers or animated emoji is free for all users. The new image can become the main picture of a personal profile, group or channel.

Users will also be able to suggest and install photos to people in their contact list.

9. About 1 million different stickers and emoji are now available to Telegram users. They have been gathered into special categories for easy search and use in 2023. They can be found either in the sticker bar or in the reactions and status menus.
10. 10 new sets of emoji have appeared; you can see and add them in the new section “Popular emoji”.
11. And for previously created emoji – there are interactive versions! You can send them to your personal chat, click and see a full-fledged animation.

In winter of 2023, VKontakte also announced a number of improvements to make advertising more effective! 

Media in Telegram: autosave and send permission

6. In the settings, the user can choose the types of chats from which media will be automatically saved. Alternatively, it is possible to make an exception for individual chats to save only necessary videos and photos.  Here you can also specify the size and type of media files to be stored in the “Gallery” of the device.
7. Administrators can allow or deny sending media to group members. There are 9 types of media in the list: voice and video messages, music, photos, videos, files, links. Now it is even possible to disable text messages completely and create communities with voice messages only.

Logging in to your Telegram account: choosing a network and ID

4. Telegram users can sign in to their account with an Apple ID and Google ID.  If a password was previously set for two-step authentication, it will still be prompted.
5. Under “Network usage” section, detailed statistics about Wi-Fi and mobile traffic usage have appeared. A pie chart and auto-loading settings according to operators’ tariffs will help optimise traffic usage.

Telegram Premium: get it at a discount for a year at a time!

2. There is a new feature for Telegram Premium subscribers: you can subscribe to Telegram Premium for a whole year at once and get access to exclusive functions at a discount of up to 45%. Pay for a year of Telegram Premium at once (e.g., via official messenger bot): but only RUB 1980 (RUB 165 per month) instead of RUB 3588 (RUB 299 per month).
3. Premium users may automatically translate messages from chats, groups and channels into Russian. To do that, press button “Translate” at the top of the screen. In the menu nearby you can choose other languages for translation.

One more Telegram update for February 2023! Developers can embed a button in bots to help you quickly select a group, channel or people.