You can now add a friend to Instagram Live Stories

If you think your Instagram Lives have been getting a bit lonely and dull, the app will now let you add a friend to join your live stream. The catch is your friend has to be watching your Live Story to join in. So make sure to let that person know you want them to live stream with you ahead of time. It’s pretty simple to setup. You just need to tap on the two smiley faces seen at the bottom of the screen (beside the comments text box). From there, your screen will be split horizontally and you just need to select the username of the person you want to stream with. If you want to take them out of the stream, you just need to tap on the X button on their screen. Just like a regular Live Story, you can add filters and the like as well as opt to not make the video available for 24 hours.

Source: CNET

You can now use face filters with Instagram Live

If you’re the type to obsessively use the face filters on Instagram, you can now carry over that obsession to your Instagram live videos. The app will now let you use these filters while you live stream. Just like when you record your regular stories, you just need to tap on the face icon on the bottom right corner and choose your filter. There’s a new sunglasses face filter that’ll be an Instagram Live exclusive for the next week. You can change the scenery reflected on the glasses by tapping on the screen. You may or may not see this new feature yet as Instagram is rolling it out globally over the next few weeks.

Source: Instagram

You’ll soon be able to upload Instagram albums in portrait or landscape

One of the biggest downsides of Instagram’s multiple photo and video uploads is that everything has to be in a weirdly cropped square format. Thankfully Instagram seems to be addressing this now. Instagram albums will soon let you upload in either portrait or landscape. The caveat is every photo in the album has to either be in portrait or landscape. You can’t mix it up yet because Instagram says this will “keep the experience smooth and consistent.”

One of the other changes is that you can now go back and edit tags within the album, which wasn’t available for albums before. And the iOS version of the app can also save albums as drafts. Android users have to wait a bit but it’ll supposedly be coming “soon.”

Source: Instagram | Via: Mashable

Instagram adds fun ways to reply to direct messages

Instagram wants to keep you engaged and having fun on its platform. Another new feature Instagram is introducing adds some new ways to reply to videos and photos sent to you directly by your friends. If your friend sent you a photo or video in Direct, you can reply to them with a sticker of what you’re replying to (as you see in the first two screenshots from the left). Aside from that, you can also now send split-screen replies and let you add some stickers or doodles to the image you’ve been sent and then add your own photo. The new features are coming to both Android and iOS.