Instagram has announced that it is rolling out several new features to make it easier for users to connect with their friends and followers on the photo and video sharing platform. The Meta-owned service has rolled out new features including notes, candid stories, group profiles, collaborative collections and more. The notes feature will let users update their friends using text and emoji and replies to notes will arrive as direct messages (DMs) in the user’s inbox.
The company announced the new features via a blog post on Tuesday. The first feature is called notes, and will allow users create a short post of up to 60 characters, with text and emoji. Users can go to the top of their inbox, then select the followers they follow back or others from their existing “Close Friends” list to share notes with. Once done, it will appear at the top of their friends’ inboxes for 24 hours, similar to an Instagram story. Users can check the replies to their notes in in their DMs.
Instagram said that the notes feature will give people a casual and spontaneous way to express themselves and connect with their friends and followers. The other feature rolling out is lets users nominate friends to participate in “Add Yours” on stories, via the new “add your nomination” feature which you can access by tapping the “pass it on” button.
The company is also working on a group profiles feature
Photo Credit: Instagram
Meanwhile, Instagram’s candid stories feature will allow users to click a candid photo from the stories camera and share the real-time activity with their friends and followers. It will only be visible to those who also share their own candid story. Meta is testing a similar feature for Facebook as well, and the feature appears to be inspired by the BeReal application that is growing in popularity globally.
The Meta-owned service has also rolled out a group profiles feature that enables users to create and join a profile to share posts and stories in a dedicated, shared group with their friends. It will only be shared to group members. Moreover, the app is also testing collaborative collections feature – a new way to connect with friends over their shared interests.
Users will be able to save posts to a collaborative collection in the group or private DMs. They will be required to start or add to a collaborative collection by saving a post directly from their feed. They can even share a post to a friend via DM and then save it, according to the company.