Instagram Direct, that part of the photo and video sharing app which is used to send personal messages, is the focus of a new update that has just been rolled out for the Android and iOS versions of the service. Threaded messages have found their way into it, apart from the ability to send content from your feed and more.
Earlier, Instagram just allowed you to create Direct messages from your own photos or videos. But that has changed now, even as its makers have doled out the facility to share content from your feed directly with one of your friends or a group of them. Say goodbye to @-mentioning them in the comments to pull their attention.
A new ‘arrow’ icon that appears beside the Like and Comment icons enables you to share the post in the form of a Instagram Direct message. You can choose the recipients then and there and add a comment of your own before sharing the post.
The next step is that the particular photo or video will appear in the form of a threaded conversation. This thread will continue to store shared media over time, and will hence act as a throwback tool in the future as well. Tapping once on the content shared in such a way will let you see the original post.
Through the new feature, you can even send hashtag pages and location pages by tapping the arrow icon in the top right-hand corner. Privacy works the same way as in the previous version of Instagram Direct, in the sense that the content will only be visible to all those whom you choose to share it with.
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The update which adds these new features to Instagram Direct is live now on the Google Play store as well as the Apple App Store.