In November, Instagram blatantly copied Snapchat and launched disappearing photos and videos on its platform, and even offered more features along with it. After recording a video or taking a photograph, you could add it to your story, or send it any of your friends.
Now, instead of having a chat-head with friends for disappearing media, and one for regular DMs and conversations, Instagram is clubbing the two into one. This means the photos and videos you sent with a fixed timer will be shown, although expired, in the same conversation folder as your regular messaging.
This new ‘Direct’ feature has been extended to everyone on Instagram. The new Direct is available for iOS and Android in the Apple App Store and Google Play as part of Instagram version 10.16.
Here’s how it works:
- Just swipe left on your phone’s screen into Direct and tap the new blue camera icon at the bottom to take a disappearing photo or video, or tap the blue camera icon in an existing thread. As always, swiping right from feed will take you directly to the camera.
- Tap the arrow to send it to individual friends or groups of friends.
- Keep track of who has seen your message through notifications within the thread.
Instagram Direct lets you send a photo or video as a message to one or more people. You can send photos or videos from your library or take new ones. The camera button on the top left allows you to send disappearing photos and videos as well.
“When you receive new disappearing messages, they’ll be highlighted blue in your inbox. Tap to view them and you can replay them once. The sender will be notified if you replay or screenshot the message,” says Instagram. This is similar to Snapchat feature notifying you when someone takes a screenshot of the photo or the video.
Even the texts, uploads and reshares will be added to the Direct feature. All the conversations will be stored in the same place. Instagram says that nearly 375 million people have been using Direct since the last update in November 2016, up by 75 million.
This integration of both the conversations into one is actually what should have been done by Instagram in the first plac because unless you’re an avid user of Instagram, you will not like the fact that the temporary media chat heads are kept hanging at top.
This will also allow users to check for DMs and media in one place, considering the number of DMs celebrities and famous personalities receive on a daily basis.
Source: Instagram
