Facebook-owned Instagram has just released a new feature on its mobile app that is taking Twitterverse by storm. The new feature allows users to see the online status of the people that they have been conversing with on direct messages. It becomes more interesting when it was found that the feature works even if the person is not following your account.
Users on Twitter spotted the new feature and pointed out the sudden rollout. Later, Instagram officially confirmed the release of the new feature. Twitter users even spotted testing features like text-only stories and a screenshot security feature.
An Instagram spokesperson gave a detailed information about the new Active feature in a statement. He said, “We’re always working on ways to make it easier to have fun, real-time conversations with friends on Instagram. We recently rolled out the ability to see when people you follow or message in Direct were last active on Instagram, and they can see when you were last active. Activity status only appears in the Direct inbox and you can control the visibility of your activity status in Settings.”
The new Active feature introduced on Instagram is similar to that of ‘Last Seen’ on WhatsApp and ‘Active at’ on Facebook Messenger. It can be accessed by going into the Instagram Direct messages section of the app. Last time stamp is shown below the user’s name. It shows when the user was online on the app; it has options like ‘Active now’, ‘Active today’, ‘Active 1h ago’, ‘Active 24m ago’ etc. Users will have to change their settings in order to view the visibility of your Active status. Users can simply go to Settings via the three-dot menu in the app, and toggle the Show Activity Status feature.
Meanwhile, a report from TheNextWeb claims that Instagram is currently testing a new ‘Type’ feature which enables text-only, written Stories on the mobile app. Since the Instagram Stories have always been based on images and video, the Internet-based photo-sharing application has been testing the new Type feature. As rumours have it, it shows up next to other choices such as Boomerang, Rewind, and Superzoom.
Moreover, users will have the liberty to choose from different fonts, different backgrounds, and even apply filters on Type.
While according to a report from WABetaInfo, Instagram is also testing out a security feature in its app. The feature will notify users if someone takes a screenshot of their stories. Currently, Instagram notifies users of a screenshot only if the image or video is sent on Instagram Direct. Now, like Snapchat, the feature will be expanded to public stories as well.