Instagram has just rolled out a huge change to its Direct's messaging function by merging together both regular chats and disappearing photos and videos. The change itself is aimed at simplifying all conversations within the app and allowing users to have a single place to view all types of Content.
Beyond just emulating Snapchat
After launching Stories just recently, which was previously considered to be a uniquely Snapchat-only feature, Instagram is now aiming at beating their direct competitor by adding a more streamlined way of interacting and sharing content.
The company has apparently now focused on further developing its Instagram Direct messaging feature to make it a worthy rival even against its parent company's Facebook Messenger.
Combining the best of both worlds
With the new update, users can now share their ephemeral messages, texts, photos, and videos in the same thread as their conversations with friends right inside the app. Ephemeral content will still disappear once it has been viewed, but users will still be notified when new content has been shared.
Instagram apparently wants users to have an easier time holding a conversation with friends, while still be being able to share quick snaps or videos in the middle of conversations. Instagram had previously added ephemeral messaging back in November last year, but it was quite bothersome to shift between two separate areas within the app to access both the ephemeral content and the chat conversation.
#Instagram Direct unites ephemeral and permanent messaging for 375M users https://t.co/Ihxsm5uYjq via @TechCrunch pic.twitter.com/NOLBl68U0d
— Conrad Salvador (@explicitmemory) April 11, 2017
A media filled future
Snapchat was on the right track when it gave users the power to quickly share their personal content with friends and family.
However, its process of deleting all records of the ephemeral content and chat conversations does make it quite difficult to hold an ongoing conversation.
Instagram's product lead for sharing, Roby Stein, recently revealed that over 85 percent of the people who are using the app's messaging feature are actually conversing and sharing with the same two or three people.
It apparently made sense for them to just combine both features into one single place. This allows users to make their conversations more interesting by adding stickers, doodles, ephemeral photos and videos within those conversations.
“Direct is important to us. There’s a shift happening right now... with a generation where the main way they communicate is their camera.” Stein had mentioned
