Instagram Status Updates Now Includes Songs and Translations
Six months ago, Meta introduced new sharing-focused features on Instagram, including Notes, Group Profiles, and new Stories functionality. As it turns out, Notes have proven very popular with young users, prompting Instagram to add more features to it including the ability to attach a 30-second clip of a song to a status update.
According to The Verge, the song snippet feature allows users to post a song to a status update, including a short caption to go with the track. A user’s friends can tap on the attached song and listen to the short clip.
Instagram is also adding a translation function to its Notes feature, allowing users to translate a friend’s status into another language quickly.
As The Verge observes, Notes’ text-based status update is like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM’s) away messages and status from way back when. Interestingly, Instagram says that Notes is significantly more popular with its youngest users, people who most likely never used AIM.
“Teens are posting Notes at 10 times the rate other users are, according to Instagram,” The Verge reports.
Instagram Takes Aim at Twitter
Notes have a 60-character limit, similar to the old limit on Twitter. Of course, a status update on Instagram differs from how users interact with content on Twitter. However, leaks last month show what an in-development Twitter competitor could look like.
Meta wants to develop a Twitter-like app that coexists with Instagram and syncs with Instagram and other apps. When the leaked images appeared last month, rumors suggested the new app could release in June.
Unlike Notes on Instagram, Meta’s potential Twitter-like app would feature a feed like Twitter’s, including longer status updates and the ability to post photos and videos. In PetaPixel’s reporting, the app is described as having four main features, “The ability to talk directly with an audience and peers, integration with Instagram, compatibility with other apps like Mastodon, and a focus on safety and security.”
Leveraging the massive user base on Instagram and attacking a perceived weakness in Twitter’s position given Elon Musk’s tumultuous run at the helm so far, a Meta-backed Twitter competitor may very well be in a position to succeed.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
