Instagram is Reportedly Testing ‘Regrams’, Stories Archives, and More
There’s no doubt that Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app for Android and iOS, is more popular than it’s ever been — it hit 500 million daily active users in September. But it could always use an update. On Thursday, The Next Web discovered unannounced features lurking in an unreleased Instagram client, including the ability to “regram” — or repost — photos and videos, archive old Stories, and more.
Republishing another user’s Instagram photo has never been easy, but ‘regrams’ promise to change that once and for all. They appear to be a way to reshare content from someone you follow, which previously required saving images or videos and publishing them on your own account. Instagram’s work-in-progress regram button saves you the trouble by sharing content from someone you follow with all of the people who currently follow you.
If Instagram’s other feature in testing, GIF search, sounds familiar, that’s because social and messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Allo have popularized it in recent months. It’s pretty much like it sounds: Type in the name of the GIF you’d like, and you’ll get a gallery of choices you can add to Stories. From what we can tell, Giphy’s supplying the content, here.
Ever wished you could save a Story forever? Good news: Instagram’s testing an archive feature for Stories. There’s also a new friends category, “Closest Friends,” that lets you add people to a special list that not everyone can see. The next time someone who’s using Closest Friends shares something, they’ll be prompted to make it public or keep it private.
That’s not all that Instagram’s testing. The Next Web spotted evidence of an iOS beta program, WhatsApp integration, a list of trending emoji and hashtags in Instagram’s search bar, the ability to follow hashtags, and a pinned thread option in direct messages.
All of these features are in development, of course, and they may or may not make their way into the public Instagram app. With the evidence we’re seeing, though, it looks like they’re far along in the development cycle. Here’s hoping they come to light.
Source: The Next Web
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