Instagram ditches Shop tab

Source: Instagram

Instagram is shelving the Shop tab the company placed in the main navigation bar. In its place, the Create button will make a comeback. According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, they wanted to "simplify" the app and refocus its priorities to "bring people together over what they love." This means, the options you get in the navigation bar include Home, Search, Create, Reels, and Profile. The changes will take effect in February.

Shopping won't take a backseat in the app, though. You can still shop in the app. The Meta-owned company also stated on its help page that it would “continue to invest in shopping experiences that provide the most value for people and businesses across feed, stories, reels, ads and more.”

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Instagram brings status updates with new Notes feature

Source: Meta

When Instagram's Notes feature started showing up on my app, I was immediately transported to the height of Yahoo! Messenger. But these days, it wants to make the feature a rival to Twitter. The feature has been tested for months, but it looks like Meta found the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the chaos at Twitter.

Notes lets you attach a 60-character status to your profile, which shows up in your Instagram messages. This feature joins Instagram's new BeReal-like feature and its other collaboration tools.

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Instagram starts testing its BeReal clone

Source: Meta

Instagram hasn't been shy about copying features from its competitors. Aside from its new collab features, the Meta social network has a new Candid Stories feature, recreating BeReal's signature once-a-day posts using both the front and rear cameras on your phone. Instagram is testing the feature in South Africa first.

Similar to BeReal, Instagram's Candid Stories will prompt you to post once a day. You can see your friend's Candids when they post. These will appear in the Stories section of the app. Instagram hasn't elaborated on when this feature gets a wider release, but you'll definitely hear from us when it does go live.

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Instagram tests more collaboration features with Group Profiles, Collaborative Collections

Source: Meta

Instagram is again throwing more features against the wall to see what sticks. A couple of the new features it's testing revolves around collaboration on the platform.

Group Profiles allows multiple users to post on one profile. According to Meta, "Whenever you share content to a Group Profile, that content will only be shared to group members instead of your followers, and will be posted on the Group Profile instead of your own."

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