Meta-owned popular social media platform, Instagram, has launched a bunch of new features for Android users across the globe. Meta, the parent company, took to its official blog to introduce new features such as Notes, Candid Stories, and Group Profiles. The company says that it will allow users to connect with their family and friends in several interesting ways. With the recent update, Instagram has already made the Notes feature available to the public, whereas Candid Stories is in its testing phase.
If you are unaware of these new features, make sure to check them out.
Instagram brings in new features for the users
Instagram Notes
The Instagram ‘Notes’ feature is a new way of sharing thoughts with your followers or the people on your Close Friends list. You’ll be able to share whatever you want in the form of text and emojis. Let’s not forget that it supports up to 60 characters. You can simply write notes by heading to the app’s inbox, and selecting whom you want to share them with (your followers or close friends). The short message left by you will be visible for 24 hours and replies will be visible in DMs (direct messages).
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Candid Stories
Another interesting feature introduced by Instagram is ‘Candid Stories.’ The parent company says that it also plans to roll out this feature on Facebook. Though this feature is under testing, we have learned that it is Meta’s version of BeReal on Instagram. FYI, BeReal is an easy-to-use photo-sharing app that asks users to post real-life photos once a day. You’ll be asked to take the photo in 2 minutes at any time of the day. The photos taken on this app are unedited, and unfiltered, and are usually marked with an asterisk (*) if it was retaken.
The primary objective behind rolling out this feature was to encourage people to be more authentic and present themselves in how they look at the moment. By adopting this feature, Meta is trying Instagram users to be more genuine by showing their real-life looks on the platform. In short, the company wants to show that Instagram is not all about reel-life, after all.
The Candid Stories will show up in the Stories bar on the homepage for users who choose to post their Candid. If you don’t want to receive a Candid notification, it can be turned off from the settings.
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Group Profiles
The third new feature is ‘Group Profies’ where people can join a new profile and share posts/stories with the group members and not all your followers. You can easily create a new Group Profile by tapping the plus (+) icon. Further, Meta is also testing the ‘Collaborative Collections’ feature that will allow you to save content on the feed to a collection you share with your family and friends.
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The features that are under testing are likely to roll out soon, while other features are live for users across the world. That said, we can’t deny the fact that with the announced features, Meta is borrowing features from other competing social media apps to serve the needs of users. How can we forget the ‘Make Instagram Instagram Again’ petition, where the parent company was criticized for replicating features of TikTok?
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Banner Image Source: Meta
