iPhone photography fans, rejoice! Facebook-owned Instagram is holding its Share a Moment media event in Midtown Manhattan, New York City and co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom has just taken the wraps off Instagram Direct, a new feature designed to make it easy to limit specific photos and videos to select groups of friends.
The capability is available now through Instagram’s just-updated free iPhone app. As for Instagram metrics, Systrom said Instagram grew from 80 million users at the beginning of 2013 to 150 million users worldwide, with half of Instagram’s users accessing the service on a daily basis…
From the Instagram blog:
There are moments in our lives that we want to share, but that will be the most relevant only to a smaller group of people—an inside joke between friends captured on the go, a special family moment or even just one more photo of your new puppy. Instagram Direct helps you share these moments.
The feature is live now via a new icon in the top right corner of your home feed in the mobile Instagram app.
First, check out the promo video.
http://vimeo.com/81527238
Tapping this icon will take you to your inbox where you’ll see photos and videos that people have sent to you. Sending a photo or video to someone is a simple matter of flipping a switch. First, you hit the camera button to invoke the familiar photo/video capture/editing interface.
From there, you can share your content with your followers (“Followers”) or specific people (“Direct”), as seen on the screenies top of post and below. Note that some features appear in green when using Instagram Direct. Next, tap the names of the people you want to share your content with, write an optional caption, hit Send and you’re done.
You can also see who’s checked out your photo or video, who’s liked it and watch the comments appear in real time. The same real-time nature of Instagram Direct is evidenced when receiving photos and videos from people you follow.
But what happens if someone I’m not following sends me an Instagram photo or video, you ask. Easy, it will go to your requests so you can decide if you want to view it, Instagram explains.
You can send a post to up to fifteen people with Instagram Direct.
More on Instagram Direct is available in this FAQ.
The feature is now available via Instagram’s 5.0 update, detailed in our post here.
Are you liking Instagram Direct so far?