Instagram Direct is the latest feature that has been bestowed on the extremely popular photo-sharing service. As the name suggests, it allows you to send a private message to a friend or a group of people and it can include a picture, video as well as text.
Until now, Instagram was a highly social networking service and content shared on it was visible to either the entire community or all of the followers of the user. There was no option to send a particular picture or a video to a friend or a group of people. But with the Direct messages option, the Facebook-owned application is allowing its subscribers to share a private joke with friends or forward a candid family shot to all the members of the family.
The updated version of the app features a dedicated icon for the inbox that has been placed on the top right corner on the news feed screen. Tapping the icon will lead you to the inbox where you will find private messages from friends and followers. Pictures, Videos as well as text messages show up here.
But when you wish to send a message to one of your friends, you are required to carry out the process that you normally do when sharing an image on Instagram. So, first of all, select the content you wish to send and add filters to it. When it is ready, you can choose between ‘followers’ and ‘direct’ to either make it visible to all your followers or send it as a private message, respectively. You come to know who viewed and liked it and you can see the comments and conversations in real time.
Instagram Direct is available now for Android and iOS versions of the application.