Meta-owned Instagram, one of the most popular photo and video-sharing services, on Tuesday announced the launch of “Notes”, a new way for Instagram users to share their thoughts and see what their friends are up to.
The social network also introduced another feature called “Candid Stories”, which is based on a concept similar to the popular rival photo-sharing application, BeReal, among other features.
Let’s check out the new features added to Instagram:
Notes:
The new feature “Notes”, inspired by Twitter, allow users to type out posts of up to 60 characters using just text and emojis.
To leave a note, you need to go to the top of the inbox, then select the followers you follow back or people on your “Close Friends” list. Then, type your Note. The Note will appear at the top of your friends’ inboxes for 24 hours, while replies to notes will arrive as DMs (direct messages) in your inbox.
“During testing, we learned that people liked having a lightweight, easy way to share what’s on their mind and start conversations. From asking for recommendations to sharing what they’re up to, Notes give people a casual and spontaneous way to express themselves and connect with each other,” Instagram wrote in a blog post that was earlier testing the feature in select regions, including India.
Candid Stories:
Instagram is testing “Candid Stories”, which are meant to capture and share what you are doing at the moment, similar to the popular BeReal app.
Candid selfies will take a photo with the front and rear-facing cameras of the device simultaneously. Instagram’s Candid will send notifications to you once a day to share a selfie. Further, your Candid Stories will be visible only to those who have uploaded their own Candids.
“Capture a candid from the stories camera, the multi-author story at the top of feed, or from the daily notification reminder that starts after your first candid,” Instagram added.
Those who don’t want to receive the daily notification reminder can disable the feature through the Settings menu. The company is also testing a similar feature on Facebook Stories.
Add Yours:
The “Add Yours” feature which was launched in Stories last year is also getting an update, which will allow you to invite friends to participate by tapping “pass it on” when you see a prompt that reminds you of them.
Group Profiles:
Users will soon be able to create and join Group Profiles to share posts and stories in a dedicated, shared profile with friends. The content shared to a Group Profile will only be shared to group members and not the followers. It will be posted on the Group Profile instead of your own.
To create a new group profile, tap the “+” and select Group Profiles.
Collaborative Collections:
Collaborative Collection is a new feature to help users connect with friends over their shared interests by saving posts to a collaborative collection in their group or 1:1 DMs.
To start or add to a collaborative collection, you need to save a post directly from the feed or share a post with a friend via DM and save it from there.
Since all the above new Instagram features are either being tested or rolled out, these will be available to Instagram users slowly.
