Instagram Finally Lets You Share Your Real-Time Location Via Direct Messages to Meet Up With Friends
Instagram has rolled out a major update to its Direct Messages that will change the way you communicate with your friends. The most notable new feature is real-time location, a feature that Instagram says will allow you to share your location for an hour or pinpoint a specific point on a map to facilitate meetings.
Real-time location sharing is designed for everyday situations: from coordinating where to meet up to finding friends in crowded places like concerts or events. It can only be shared in private chats, whether one-on-one or group, and has an indicator at the top so you don’t forget you’re sharing your location.
To protect privacy, shared location cannot be forwarded to other conversations and you can stop sharing at any time. This feature, which is currently being added to other privacy options such as temporary mode, is currently available in select countries.
In addition to the site, Instagram has introduced 17 new sticker packs with over 300 different options to express yourself in chats. The update lets you mark stickers as favorites, including those shared by friends and those you create using scrapbooks, for easy reuse.
The third new feature is the ability to use nicknames in chats. You can customize names for yourself and your friends, whether to share inside jokes or simplify long usernames. Nicknames only appear in private chats and do not affect your username on the rest of the platform.
By default, only people you follow can change your nickname in a chat, although you can adjust this setting to be the only one who can do so. To create a nickname, simply tap on your chat name at the top of the conversation and select the “Nicknames” option.