Instagram has enhanced its Direct Messaging (DM) features with several new updates, announced on Monday. Among the new features is the ability to share your live location with friends, which can be particularly useful for coordinating meetups at concerts or other crowded events. Additionally, users can now assign nicknames in one-on-one or group chats, and there are over 300 new stickers available for sharing in DMs.
The new location-sharing feature allows users to share their live location for up to one hour. This feature is designed to enhance privacy, as it only displays the location to people in your private DMs, whether in one-on-one or group chats. Locations shared cannot be forwarded to anyone outside the designated chat. By default, the feature is turned off, and users will see a “You are sharing your location” indicator at the top of every message thread where the feature is enabled. Users also have the option to stop sharing their location manually at any time.
The nickname feature allows users to add aliases for themselves or their friends within DMs. According to Instagram’s announcement blog post, this feature can be used to share an inside joke with a nickname or to simplify lengthy usernames, making friends easier to recognize. These nicknames are only visible within your DMs and do not appear elsewhere on the platform.
Users can create or change nicknames at any time and can choose which friends in a chat have permission to change their nickname. To set a nickname, users can tap on the chat name at the top of the conversation, select “Nicknames,” and choose the username they want to change.
In addition to these features, Instagram has introduced 17 new sticker packs for DMs, adding over 300 new stickers for users to share. Users can favorite the stickers they like, including those shared by their friends, making it easier to access and use their preferred stickers in conversations.
