Instagram News & Updates

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What's the point of broadcasting live on Instagram if you can't prod your followers to watch you? Otherwise you're just livestreaming to the wind. To solve this crisis, Instagram today announced a new feature allowing users to send their live videos right to the Direct inbox of a follower or a group of them. It's kind of like performing a song on their front lawn and throwing rocks at their window to get them to notice.

Instagram now lets you directly nag your friends to watch your live video

 

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Instagram’s feed will now show users recommended posts – a change that earlier this month was spotted while in testing, and has since quietly gone live. The feature, described here in the company’s Help documentation, will suggest posts for you based on those that have been liked by other accounts you follow.

Instagram will now add ‘Recommended’ posts to your feed

 

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• Facebook is testing the ability to post Instagram Stories on WhatsApp Status
• When posted, Stories would remain encrypted on WhatsApp
• The feature looks to currently be in testing

Instagram allowing some folks to post their Stories on WhatsApp

 

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If you have ever used Facebook or WhatsApp stories, you must have noticed an option to put up plain text-based stories, against colorful backgrounds. A similar option has also been around on WhatsApp DM replies. And now, the same is being tested for Instagram Stories.

Instagram testing ‘Type’ feature within Stories, here’s how it works

 

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Another day, another feature nobody asked for. Facebook subsidiary Instagram has now enabled activity status in direct messages: this means that practically all of your friends will now be able to see when the last time you were actively using the app was.

The feature rolled out as part of the latest updates for Android and iOS – so at least you know everyone is getting the same deal.

Instagram now tells everyone when you’re active, here’s how to hide it

 

[Bapun]

Instagram tests new 'Type' feature for Stories and screenshot alerts

Source

 

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After months of rumors and limited rollouts, Instagram is officially adding GIF support to its Stories feature. Starting today, you can now plaster dancing cats and flying cheeseburgers over your photos and videos. The options are endless with hundreds of thousands of moving stickers to choose from thanks to GIPHY integration. Instagram is also announcing an upcoming feature that will let users upload photos and videos of any size to Stories, so you’ll no longer be forced to awkwardly crop them in that 9:16 (portrait) format.

Instagram now supports GIFs in Stories

 

[Bapun]

At present, the Instagram team is internally working to implement in the application the possibility to video call other users.

A new icon will appear in the navigation bar in the chat, as it happens in WhatsApp:

The feature will be immediately accessible once the user opens an active chat with another one: this means you will be able to video call only if the other user has already accepted the request to chat, otherwise the icon won’t appear.

Tapping on that icon, the video call will start. Instagram hasn’t actually implement other UI elements for the video call (so there’s not much to publish) and for this reason we should wait more to see this feature enabled.
This feature is under development, so it’s normal that you don’t see it updating your Instagram app: it will be enabled in next months, and it will be available both on iOS and Android platforms.

Instagram is going to implement video calls | WABetaInfo

 

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Today, we're introducing Carousel Ads for Instagram Stories, allowing advertisers to have up to three pieces of media per Stories ad, before it was just one.
Carousel Ads for Instagram Stories behave the same way as other Stories content, meaning you can tap through, swipe back and forth or pause the content whenever you'd like.

Bringing Carousel Ads to Instagram Stories

 

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Instagram purposefully lacks a “re-gram” button to promote original sharing, but it’s easing up on that philosophy when it comes to Stories. Instagram now confirms to TechCrunch that it’s testing an option that lets you share public feed posts from other users to your Story. This could let you add commentary and overlaid stickers to a meme, celebrity post, or even a friend’s photo. For users whose lives aren’t so interesting, re-sharing could give them something to post.

Instagram tests re-sharing of others’ posts to your Story