Instagram is updating its algorithms to release two new features: Facebook reactions in Stories and the icon for online users in Direct
After IGTV, the vertical television, a new feature is on the horizon for Instagram: reactions in Stories. In fact, this is a tool that social users are already accustomed to using, having long been present among the features of Facebook.
Reactions, for the few who still do not know them, are cute little faces to be able to respond quickly but thoroughly to the Stories of other users. On Facebook, users have been using them for years and now they can do it on Instagram. On Facebook the reactions are six in total: the thumbs up, the heart, the funny face, the surprised face, the sad face and the angry one. They will be six also on Instagram but slightly different, we will have the clap of the hand, the flame, the smiley face, the surprised one, the sad one and finally the face with eyes in the shape of a heart. At the moment the new feature is being tested on some iOS users but soon it should be released for everyone, including Android users.
How to use reactions in Instagram Stories
Reactions land on Instagram and will be really easy to use to quickly comment on the Stories of our favorite friends or influencers. But how do we send the reactions face? Simple, when the update of Instagram will be released to all opening a Story we will see the icon of reactions in the lower left. Basically where there is now the camera icon that is used to respond with a photo to a Story. We'll just have to press on the Reactions icon to choose which emoticons to send and then press Enter. In short, using Reactions on Instagram will be really simple and fun. It must be said that it is not clear if Instagram will decide to change this feature between the testing phase and the official release but more or less the use of Reactions on the social for photos will remain this.
Seeing users who are online on Instagram
Waiting for Reactions, Instagram has already launched a new feature that is available to all users, iOS, Windows Phone or Android who update the application. It is the icon to understand if a user is online on Instagram Direct. How does it work? Simple, from now when we open the direct, ie the section for Instagram messages, we will see a small green dot in the profile photo of our contacts who are online and are available to chat. This is basically the same function that we have already seen on Messenger and even before in Facebook chat and that was used to identify which users were connected to the platform at the time we were using the service.
The green dot for online users on Instagram Direct will obviously only be visible for our contacts and only with those with whom we have already started a conversation before. This means that if we have never chatted with a certain profile we will not know if it is connected or not. As it happens on WhatsApp the online user indicator can be disabled or made invisible, as it happens on Facebook Messenger. It is not clear whether the idea of Instagram is to slowly transform the Direct section in a new application for messaging, in practice in a sister app like WhatsApp and Messenger that ironically are all owned by Facebook.