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Facebook-owned Instagram will now roll out its direct messaging (DM) feature for web-users, six years after the feature was introduced on the app.
Instagram, on Tuesday, announced that it will be testing out the feature for desktop users.
The photo-sharing platform shared the news through its official Twitter account as well. “DMs, but make them desktop. We’re currently testing Direct messaging on the web, so you can read and reply to your messages from wherever you are,” the tweet read.
The web version of the photo-sharing app lacked multiple features from the app. As a much-needed upgrade, the platform will now allow users to communicate through its web version as well.
The news that had already been leaked by Twitter user Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) back in October has now been confirmed. Jane had shared a series of tweets with screenshots of how the feature would appear on the desktop, on her Twitter account.·
“Instagram is working on Direct for the desktop website. On Instagram Direct for desktop web, thread info becomes a sidebar just like Messenger for desktop web,” Wong had tweeted.
Currently, the feature has been rolled out only to a small percentage of users for testing purposes.
The feature would work just the same as it does on Instagram’s app. Users can send direct messages, create groups, double click on messages to like them and even send pictures through DMs. Users will also be able to see the number of unread messages and receive notifications for new messages received.
The move could be part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s much talked about strategy to allow cross-platform communication between Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, reports say.
According to a New York Times report, Zuckerberg was in plans to integrate Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in a way that would allow users to communicate across platforms despite each platform operating as standalone apps.
If implemented, the move will lead to a collaboration of three major social media platforms with over 2.6 billion users allowing cross-platform communication on such a large scale for the first time, according to the New York Times report.
Instagram, as a standalone platform currently has over one billion active monthly users.
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