Instagram launched Creator Lab in India during an event held in Mumbai, offering creator-centric educational resources. At the same event, Meta-owned Instagram announced three new features aimed at increasing engagement on its platform. These features are related to Stories, Notes, and Chats.
One of the new features, “Comments in Stories,” allows users to comment on someone’s stories, with these comments visible to other users. Previously, Instagram permitted comments on posts and reels that were visible exclusively to the user’s followers. Comments on stories will be visible for 24 hours after the story is posted. However, if the story is added to the profile as a highlight, the comments will remain. Instagram may also offer users the option to disable the comments feature on stories.
Expanding on the functionality that allowed users to create stickers from image cutouts, Instagram will soon extend this capability to chats within the platform. Users will be able to use cutouts of images from their device as stickers in chats.
Instagram is also planning to introduce Birthday Notes. This feature will display a birthday hat icon in the Notes section on a user’s birthday. Users must opt in to use this feature, and the same privacy settings as the standard Notes feature will apply to Birthday Notes.
Additionally, Instagram has recently launched a feature that allows users to add text directly to their photos within the post editor, eliminating the need for external editing apps. Users can now also overlay one photo on top of another as a sticker within the editor. The update includes new text fonts, effects, and animations for Reels and Stories.
First Published: Aug 30 2024 | 12:50 PM IST