Facebook on Wednesday announced a new Messenger experience on Instagram, allowing cross-platform messaging for users.
“We’re announcing an update to Instagram DMs by introducing a new Messenger experience on the app,” Facebook said in an official release.
“We’re connecting the Messenger and Instagram experience to bring some of the best Messenger features to Instagram,” it said.
Users can choose on whether to update to this experience. Integrating the two platform will allow users to receive messages from Facebook Messenger on Instagram and respond to them without having to switch apps and vice versa.
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Users can also decide on where they would like to receive messages and calls, such as in chats, in their message requests or not at all.
New features
Facebook is adding over 10 new features on Instagram along with this integration. Users on Instagram can now reply to a specific message, forward a message, and customise their chat colours and themes.
It is also adding new selfie stickers which are a combination of Boomerang, emojis, and selfies.
Facebook is also bringing Watch Together to Instagram. The social media giant had introduced the feature for Messenger users earlier this month. Users can now watch videos together with friends on IGTV during a video call.
It is also adding a new ‘vanish mode,’ that allows users to send disappearing messages. With this feature, messages will automatically disappear after they’re seen.
Apart from this, users will also be able to react to messages on the photo-sharing platform using custom emojis. They can also create a shortcut of their favourite emojis to react to messages. Its new Animated Message Effects feature lets users add animated send effects to messages.
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Facebook has also improved a few privacy controls in terms of messaging. Users can now report full conversations in addition to single messages on Instagram. They will also receive “proactive blocking suggestions” across Instagram and Messenger if they’ve added their account to the Accounts Centre.
The Accounts Centre is a new tool that the social media major is testing that lets users manage their user accounts across Facebook-owned platforms from a single place.