Instagram started as a photo sharing app and now it has become a fully fledged social network that is used by over 600 million people monthly. One of the ways people share content on the network is through Direct, the network’s version of the Inbox where you share stuff to your friends privately.
It was not popular at first but now that is in the past thanks to Instagram’s decision of making people ‘comment’ on your Stories that comes off as a Direct Message. Apparently since the last update, the number of people using Direct has grown from 300 million to 375 million which is good.
Well now Instagram has announced new changes to Instagram Direct, which is good since its functionality has been quite anemic to be honest. “Today we’re launching the new Direct to make it fast and easy to turn any conversation into a visual conversation with photos and videos,” Instagram said in the post.
In the new Direct, you can tap on the new blue camera icon at the bottom to take disappearing photos or videos. When you tap on the arrow, you can send this ephemeral media to individual friends or groups and you can keep track of who has seen your message within the thread.
Also in the new Direct, if you receive disappearing messages, they will be highlighted with a blue colour where if you tap them, you will only be able to replay them once. On the sender’s side, he/she will be notified if you replay the message or if you have taken a screenshot. Instagram also clarified that texts, reshares and uploads will still work the same way.
