Instagram has announced a new set of features that will change messaging on the platform as we know it. The most interesting and useful one lets you multitask, and you’ll no longer need to open DMs and lose the track of your scrolling. Instead, you’ll be able to simply reply to messages while your Feed is still open.
In the announcement, Meta explains the changes that are about to come. Basically, your DM s will look a lot like Facebook Messenger, but here are the key changes:
Reply while you browse: Receive a new message while you’re browsing your feed? You can now reply without going to your inbox and losing your place. This new feature makes it that much easier and more convenient to chat while on the app.
Quickly send to friends: We want to help people reshare interesting content without interrupting their Instagram experience. By tapping and holding the share button, you can effortlessly reshare posts to your closest friends.
See who’s online: At the top of your inbox, you can see who’s free to chat at that moment, helping you find serendipitous opportunities to connect with friends.
In addition to the Messenger-like features above, Instagram plans to add a few more features to lure you into using its platform for messaging. You can send a 30-second preview of any song that exists on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify, so your friend can have it stuck in their head too. There’s also a great “@silent” command that will send your photo without notifying the receiver – perfect when you’re sending something late at night or while your friend is busy working. You’ll also be able to add polls to group chats and choose a “lo-fi chat theme,” whatever that is.
These changes didn’t come as a surprise. Instagram and Messenger started merging almost two years ago, and the lines between the two have become pretty blurry. As Mosseri pointed out earlier, messaging has been the main focus for Instagram over the past year or so. In addition to Reels, of course.
Meta says that all these new features are already available in some countries, and the company plans to launch them globally. However, some of them will not be available in Europe due to this region’s ePrivacy Directive.
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