Instagram was initially launched in-app mode only. And with witnessing the users’ interest on the web, the firm has adopted the service onto web version with all features except DMs. Instagram direct messages are equally important as other chat platforms. With more than a billion users, IG has gained enough popularity to bring users onto its platform from boring WhatsApp.
The Most Wanted Feature
Though it did, many users resist using the app for chatting as it’s mostly perceived for cool photo-sharing app rather than texting. Maybe it is, but any social platform that let users share media will eventually let them chat too. Instagram did, but only on its phone application and not on the web version. On the other hand, Facebook has this service since its inception, and WhatsApp eventually rolled out the web chatting support. And IG is realising now. On January 14 this year, IG’s CEO Adam Mosseri tweeted that few users were able to experience DMs on web versions, with all having this feature soon if worked well. As of now, the web IG is already having photo sharing and stories as required features, but it’s lacking DMs and other stickers. Of course, stickers and AR effects could be hard, but the DMs are coming soon. This will be helpful for businesses, influencers etc to be in better contact with their community. Users will be able to create new groups, chat in private, like each others messages, send photos (but not videos yet) etc in new Direct Messaging feature. Further, if users enabled the browser settings to allow notifications from web IG, they can even get notified whenever a message arrived. Zuckerberg’s plans of integrating the chat availability of all three (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) platforms across the web could be another future bump. While it’s yet unknown how the company does this, this will be good if we can connect with all our friends across all three major platforms. Moreover, making the chats E2E (end to end encrypted) for the other two as WhatsApp could be another major step.
