TORONTO – Photo-sharing application Instagram announced a new feature Thursday that allows users to send photos and videos directly to their friends, moving into the area of instant messaging.
‘Instagram Direct,’ announced by Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom during an event in New York, allows users to select a group of up to 15 friends to send images to – without sharing the image on their public feed.
Photos or videos sent from friends that the users ‘follows’ appear immediately in the app, while images from someone the user isn’t following come with a request asking if the user wants to view the image.
When users update the app they will now see a new icon in the top right corner of the home feed which will lead them to their private inbox.
To share private images, users can select “Direct” after adding a filter to their photo or video.
Some have speculated that the move towards instant messaging functions may be a result of influence from Facebook, who purchased Instagram last year for about $700 million.
The Instagram 5.0 update is now available in app stores for iOS and Android devices. Instagram for Windows phone is still using a beta version and will be updated in the future, the company noted.
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