Facebook has started chatting Messenger chat with the instant messaging functionality of Instagram. This allows users to chat with their Facebook contacts from Instagram, as well as use various features like swipe to reply, respond to messages with emojis, and enjoy a colorful new look for chats.
Users, including you really, have seen pop-ups when they open the Instagram app. An option is given to enable the new feature now, or later from settings. Enabling the feature at this time, however, does nothing more than change the location icon of the instant messages to the Messenger icon, and change conversations to a more colorful look. However, you can not yet chat with your Messenger contacts, even if you enable the feature directly.
Facebook had announced a while ago that it was looking to merge the chat features of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook over the long term. Even though all of these different services have billions of users, they cannot talk to each other. Perhaps, if users are asked, they would prefer that these chat features remain separate, as not everyone is friends with the same people on these different social networks. I, for one, would not want to see my WhatsApp or Facebook contacts in Instagram’s Instant Messages, but that’s where we’re headed.
The company also has plans to merge the voice and video calling feature between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, along the way.
Facebook had recently updated its Instagram and WhatsApps to add prominent Facebook branding. The apps now show that they are ‘created by Facebook’ when you open them. The company is also slowly copying Facebook profile data to Instagram profiles, such as date of birth. You will be notified of this change when you go to the ‘edit profile’ section. Although your date of birth is not displayed on Instagram, Facebook’s message clearly states that this change helps with personalization and advertising.
While this change may make Facebook more competitive with other messaging services such as iMessage and Telegram, there are some theories that could lead to further concerns about anti-trust.
We will keep you updated as Instagram’s chat functionality starts working with Facebook Messenger users.
