The Yandex Zen team have revealed two new features for channels, group chats and covers.
Channel Covers
Like the majority of social platforms, channel authors can now upload covers to further brand the channel.
The cover should:
- Be 1920 by 1080 in size
- Horizontal in format
- Consider how it will look on both desktop and smartphone devices
- It must not violate the content rules of Zen
The covers announcement has been met with varying levels of happiness, for example one Zen user, Yakov Paramonovich, doesn’t believe the cover is big enough to convey all the elements of a multi topic channel
Channel Group Chats
Zen have also begun to test the ability to create group chats.
Now bloggers will have the opportunity to communicate with the audience not only in private messages, but also to create a community around them with group chat.
Zen authors can engage with the more active users, and you can add anyone who the channel owner has already contacted in private messages or comments.
Authors can create chats and connect them to the channel in the desktop editor. This feature will be available to those bloggers who have agreed to receive private messages in the editor.
These chats will be displayed as a separate widget on the channel page.
The link to the discussion can also be added to the comments, there it will turn into a chat widget.
During the testing phase, group chats are available for parts of Zen bloggers in desktop and mobile versions of the site.
