Help needed in international Telegram Info channels

For 8 months, translators have been actively participating in international expansion of Telegram Info in more than 30 languages. This all is possible thanks to you — our volunteers, who translate news about Telegram into their native language.

However, some channels need additional translators:

🇪🇹 Amharic:
@tginfoam & @betainfoam
🇮🇳 Hindi:
@tginfohi & @betainfohi
🌷 Karakalpak:
@tginfokaa & @betainfokaa
🇲🇾 Malay:
@tginfoms & @betainfoms
🪴 Malayalam:
@tginfoml & @betainfoml
🇷🇴 Romanian:
@tginforo & @betainforo
🌺 Simplified Chinese:
@tginfocn & @betainfocn

If you want to help us with the translation into these languages or are ready to offer a new one, let us know about you in the feedback bot: @infowritebot.

You can see the list of all languages here: https://t.me/tginfoall/17.

Telegram for Android has been downloaded over 1 billion times

This is the number of Telegram downloads from Google Play, but there are also other app stores. Moreover, there are still iPhone and iPad users downloading apps from the App Store, as well as Telegram clients for PC.

Pavel Durov reported 70 million new users in the messenger due to the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp down, and IDs exceeding 2 billion in Telegram appeared this month.

Telegram overcame the 500 million downloads mark in the Play Store in May 2020.

#statistics

UK urges to impose sanctions against Telegram

"Telegram is the app of choice for extremists," said the leader of Labor Party and opposition in UK, Kir Starmer, noting that anonymous users use the messenger to post threats to "kill all women", "kill politicians", as well as homophobic insults, Islamophobia and racism.

Telegram representatives told the BBC that they were "surprised" by Sir Keir's statement, saying that "calls for violence are expressly forbidden on Telegram".

"Our moderators routinely remove content that violates this rule using a combination of proactive monitoring of public spaces and user reports," the Telegram statement concluded.

bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58980384

Telegram has added new payment providers for Payments 2.0

From now on, PSB, Portmone, Paymega, and Cascad are integrated into the Payments 2.0 platform, that was created to provide fast payments for bot developers.

Payments 2.0 was introduced in April of this year. One of the bots that supports the new payment method is the verified @donate bot, which was created to accept donations to channel authors.

Telegram has launched an advertising platform

"Sponsored messages" in Telegram will be displayed in public channels with 1000+ subscribers and a limit of 160 characters.

Sponsored messages are based solely on the subject of the public channels in which they are shown.

The minimum price per thousand views for a sponsored message is 2 euros.

promote.telegram.org

Pavel Durov commented on the announcement of the advertising platform

Pavel Durov announced the official advertising platform and explained why most users won't notice this update:

1. Telegram won't show advertising messages in the list of chats, personal conversations or groups.
2. No personal data will be used to display ads.
3. Official advertising messages in Telegram will be unobtrusive.

Pavel Durov noted that the advertising messages introduced by Telegram will be much more comfortable for users. The revenue from such advertisements will allow Telegram to continue providing users with a free and unlimited service.

The advertising platform will be available only for large advertisers

To ensure and maintain high quality of ad content, a minimum advance payment of €2,000,000 is required to launch ads on the Telegram Ad Platform.

Of this payment, Telegram holds €1,000,000 as a deposit, and makes the remaining sum available to the advertiser to spend on displaying ads.

If the contract is terminated and the advertiser spent less than €10,000,000 on ads within the preceding 12 months, the €1,000,000 deposit is withheld by Telegram.

If the contract is terminated and the advertiser spent more than €10,000,000 on ads within the preceding 12 months, the €1,000,000 deposit is returned.

All ads must comply with the Ad Platform Terms of Service and the Telegram Ad Policies and Guidelines.

Flexible invitation links and improved shared media navigation

The Telegram team has started testing the next update. Let's see what's coming:

— Better invite links
Now names can be assigned to the links, and the channel admin can enable a waiting room to approve each join request. This can be useful for advertising campaigns.

— Improved shared media navigation
You can change the attachments grid size, as well as the ability to select the display of photos or videos.

Hyper-Speed Scrolling and Calendar View for Shared Media, Join Requests and Global Chat Themes on iOS
⁠
Telegram for Android and iOS 8.2 are released

Improved Shared Media Navigation
• Now there is the ability to adjust the size of the grid by pressing the desired button ("Zoom In" or "Zoom Out") or with a two-finger gesture.
• There is a new date block that allows you to move through the section even faster by pulling it.
• Shared media now can also be displayed as a calendar.
• To use the calendar in this section, just open the new menu in the upper right corner of the Media tab, or click on the date block.
• In the menu, you can now choose content to be displayed in the Media tab - just photos, just videos, or both.

Join Requests for Groups and Channels
• You can now create special invitation links for groups and channels, joining from which is possible only after the approval of the request by a chat administrator.
• To view new requests, administrators simply click on the new panel under the chat header.
• Before deciding whether to accept or reject an application, administrators can view users' public data - such as photos and "About Yourself" information.
• Membership request mode can be enabled for any of the optional invitation links in your group or channel settings.

Unique Names for Invite Links
• Invitation links can now be given names that are visible only to administrators in the group settings.

Global Chat Themes (iOS only)
• The eight color themes that could be set for personal chats can now be applied to the entire Telegram app.
• Each theme has day and night versions, color gradients for message blocks and animated backgrounds with unique patterns.
• In this update, the design settings section has been redesigned to make theme selection more convenient.
• Advanced settings can be found under Appearance > Chat Themes.

Transit Times for Shared Locations (iOS only)
• Tapping a geoposition opens a map - now you can see how quickly you will get to a given location on foot, by car, or by public transportation.
• To build a route or call a cab, tap on the time, and the geoposition will open in another application.
• Travel time is shown for both exact geo-positioning and real-time geo-positioning broadcasts.

Instant Media Captions (iOS only)
• Previously typed text draft will be automatically substituted in the caption field after adding an attachment to it.

Settings updated for iOS 15
• Telegram has updated the settings section of the iOS app to match the design with standards adopted in iOS 15.
• Notifications and sticker settings have been optimized, and the Devices section has been made clearer with new icons and more conveniently structured information.
• You can click on any of your connected devices to see more information or end a session remotely.

More Interactive Emoji
• Some animated emoji now have full-screen effects when clicked, such as 👻, 👎, 🤮, 😂, 💸 and 🎃.
• When you click on the emoji, your interlocutor will see the effect at the same time as you if their chat with you is open too.

Read more here: telegram.org/blog/shared-media-scrolling-calendar-join-requests-and-more/

Android: Google Play, APK from official website or verified channel.
iOS: App Store.

#update #Android #iOS

Telegram Banned in Uzbekistan

Local regulating authority of Uzbekistan issued a statement that imposes a ban on Telegram and other services in the country.

Earlier Uzbekistan authorities has tightened laws related to personal data collection. Services that won't store data on servers located in Uzbekistan will be fined and their operation will be prevented in the country.

For Telegram Users in Uzbekistan, we recommend to use our proxy. You can also keep track on the situation in Uzbek language on the official mirror channel @tginfouzb and report about the situation in @tginfouzbchat.

#bans

Test Launch of Telegram Ads

Sponsored messages started to appear in large channels. Right now all of them lead you to a Pavel Durov's post in his Russian channel where he explains the upcoming ad platform.

Sponsored messages can be displayed in public channels with more than 1K+ subscribers, they also have a 160 symbols limit. The messages are based on the channel's general topic they're being displayed in.

Telegram Info team reminds you that sponsored messages appear without channel owners' consent and currently they can't be turned off.

Bot API was updated to version 5.4

What's new:
— Added the the parameter creates_join_request to the methods createChatInviteLink and editChatInviteLink for managing chat invite links that create join requests.
— Added the fields creates_join_request and pending_join_request_count to the class ChatInviteLink.
— Added the field name to the class ChatInviteLink and the parameters name to the methods createChatInviteLink and editChatInviteLink for managing invite link names.
— Added updates about new requests to join the chat, represented by the class ChatJoinRequest and the field chat_join_request in the Update class. The bot must be an administrator in the chat with the can_invite_users administrator right to receive these updates.
— Added the methods approveChatJoinRequest and declineChatJoinRequest for managing requests to join the chat.
— Added support for the choose_sticker action in the method sendChatAction.

Full changelog on the website.

#update #BotAPI

Telegram Starts a New Android Contest

Task: Based on the official app's source code, add new features while following the design guide precisely:

1. An option to forbid message forwarding from private channels and groups.
2. Sending messages on behalf of channels in public groups.
3. Deleting messages in a date range from calendar.

Conditions:
• All developers are welcome to participate.
• There might be a second round among the winners of the first one.
• Authors of the best submissions will have a chance to join the Telegram team.

Prizes fund: $50,000
Deadline: 15th of November, 19:59 UTC
Results: 18th of November

Details: https://contest.com/docs/android-Nov2021-ru (Russian only)

#contest

Telegram is Working on a Paid Subscription

Pavel Durov promised (in Russian) to launch an Ad-Free subscription this month.

Also the messenger team is working on an option for the channel owners to turn ads off on their channel. That will be possible with an "invisible sponsored message". This means ads won't be shown if the channel owner is ready to pay per view more than the advertisers.

#monetization

Telegram X Android updated to stable version 0.24.2.1471

What's new:
- Multi-pins in chats.
- Invite links 2.0.
- Improved Instant View.
- New notification settings.
- Album support for audio and files.
- Compressor for sending video.
- Slow mode and auto delete in chats.
- Transfer of owner's rights by channel, chat, bot.
- Support for background links t.me/bg/...
- Improved active sessions and QR code logins.
- Built-in player for more sites.
- Many other things not mentioned in the list.

Fixed:
- Lack of archive in the filter list.
- Fixes for the chat list.
- Request to work with geolocation on Android 11+.
- Crashes while listening to .flac.
- Duplication in the list of group administrators.
- Lack of upload date for some photos.
- Some media could be duplicated in albums.
- The "Begin" button might not work in some cases when searching for messages by date.
- Lots of other fixes not mentioned in this list

Read more about this update in the article: telegra.ph/Telegram-X-11-08

Download later from Google Play, or now from official channel @tgx_log.

#android #telegramX #update

Promotion Platform Launch: Large advertisers and frauds

The Telegram ad campaign has started in Russia with a large promotion of a network of newborn channels, but soon large players entered, like fintech company Sber, IT company Yandex, and others.

First ads from them appeared at 12th of November. Sber was promoting their main channel, while Yandex was promoting their transit and food tech services, and a bot that was giving out trial access to their subscription.

Recently Kinopoisk (a streaming service of Yandex) was promoting themselves in channels of their competitors and was making jokes about the new ad platform.

There are also some cryptocurrency related ads, particularly, ran by different maintainers of TON-family coins in Russia and China.

Submissions of the of the November Android contest appeared on the Telegram Contest website.
⁠
While judges are preparing the final results, you can explore the published works.

To see a submission, click contester's name and then click "DOWNLOAD .APK" button.

Since the apps were developed by third-party developers, it's not recommended to use your main account.

#contest

How the features from the November Telegram update should work

In early November, Telegram launched a contest for Android developers, the goal of which was to implement features, which will become part of the upcoming update.

Today, the works of the contestants have become publicly available, which means that users can already try some of the functions. Let's try to figure out how it currently works:

1. Prevent forwarding messages and saving media

At the moment, the function is working in new versions apps, and can be configured by the author of the group or channel. It is important to note that forwarding messages and saving media works from older versions of clients, this should be fixed after stable release.

2. Sending messages via a channel in public groups

At the moment, you can write via channel only in those chats where the user is the administrator. There is no such limitation on the test server.

Results of November Android Developer Contest Announced

The task of the competition was to implement several new functions in the mobile application in accordance with the proposed design.

The prize-winners shared $ 63,000 among themselves.

Detailed information about the winners, their awards and works can be viewed on the official russian Telegram channel of the contests.

The second stage of the competition will focus on the implementation of one new feature in the Telegram application. A detailed description and video layouts of the upcoming stage will be published exactly one week later (in the evening of November 26). The competition will run for 9 days until 6.12.

#contest