Meta has announced that the Instagram messaging experience is getting seven new features including music streaming integration and silent messages. The company said that the new features are available in select countries right now but it has plans to bring these features to its global audience in due course.
The new list of features is quite long so here they all are:
- Reply while you browse: Receive a new message while you’re browsing your feed? You can now reply without going to your inbox and losing your place. This new feature makes it that much easier and more convenient to chat while on the app.
- Quickly send to friends: We want to help people reshare interesting content without interrupting their Instagram experience. By tapping and holding the share button, you can effortlessly reshare posts to your closest friends.
- See who’s online: At the top of your inbox, you can see who’s free to chat at that moment, helping you find serendipitous opportunities to connect with friends.
- Play, pause, and re-play: Enabled by integrations with Apple Music, Amazon Music and Spotify coming soon, you can now share a 30-second preview of that song you just can’t get out of your head, and your friends can listen directly from the chat window.
- Send messages quietly: Send messages without notifying friends late at night or when they’re busy by adding “@silent” in your message. Now you can reach out without worrying about sending unwanted notifications.
- Keep it on the lo-fi: Feeling chill? Try the new lo-fi chat theme to make your conversations feel more personal.
- Create a poll with your squad: Deciding where to go to dinner or what time to meet up? We’re bringing one of Messenger’s most beloved group chat features to Instagram so you can create a poll directly in your group chat.
Meta said that with the new features it’s trying to help people connect in more seamless ways. It’s interesting to see polls added to make Instagram messaging more feature comparable with Messenger as Meta was planning to integrate Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp so that users could chat across services. This task should be made easier when the services have the same features.
Meta has not disclosed which countries will get the new features first so just be on the lookout for any updates through the Play Store or App Store. It also didn’t say when it will bring them to a global audience.