Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has announced on his Twitter page that the company will be rolling out its Notes feature for text-based updates across Europe and Japan.
Notes are short pieces of text (up to 60 characters) that are displayed over your profile picture for up to 24 hours before they disappear. Mosseri claims that the feature has done “really well” in Asia, North America, and Latin America and “specifically with teens” since its official launch in December.
Mosseri also shared a video on Instagram explaining that Europe and Japan were left out of the initial rollout of Notes because Instagram had to make sure the feature complied with local regulations there first. In both of these new regions, Instagram says it will take a few days for the update to roll out to all users.
Users can post Notes by going to the top of their inbox and then choosing the people they follow back or people from their “Close Friends” list. They can then manually compose the note, which will then be prioritised for 24 hours in their friends’ inboxes. When a user responds to a Note, the response will be delivered as a Direct Message (DM).
While testing Notes, Instagram discovered users valued the ability to casually initiate conversation. With this new feature, the company wanted to provide users with a more natural and relaxed means of sharing their thoughts and making connections with others.
The New York Times said in December that Meta was thinking about making Instagram Notes a more full-fledged Twitter competitor to take advantage of the chaos at Twitter after Elon Musk acquired the microblogging platform. The company reportedly debated whether Notes should be a separate app or just another feed within Instagram.
