Instagram Direct Has Arrived

Well, here it is. And for the most part, the secret sources were right. Well, at least kinda right. Instagram has indeed stepped up their bid to communicate your life’s images in an even more personal way with the aptly named Instagram Direct. From now on, you’ll continue to have the option of posting all your selfies in your feed as you normally would, or you’ll be able to select a few choice friends, co-workers, exes, potential tinder pals, to whom you can shoot your shots directly. Once sent, you’ll be able to see who’s viewed the photo or video (think of that annoying little ‘seen’ at the bottom of Facebook messages), whether or not they liked it, and their responses in real-time. Oh, and you’ll get an inbox too. Cause we all need another inbox.

Instagram already busted out its video option to put a lean on Vine and we can’t help but see this latest development as a picture of their middle finger being sent directly to Snapchat. After all, Facebook’s $3-billion weren’t enough for Evan Spiegel and Co. to join the team – and now he’s gonna have to feel Zuckerberg’s wrath (it feels a lot like high school anger). 

We can’t be sure how this is all going to play out, but the idea of taking a picture, filtering the hell out of it, and being able to conveniently send it to a few of our friends (while avoiding some of our more – how shall we put this – alarmingly committed followers) sounds like it won’t take very long to get used to. Not to mention that this new way of sending pictures eliminates that crucial step of having to exit Instagram and go into your contact list to send any, uh, extremely personal images – thus eliminating those vital few seconds where you might have one last chance to think, “Does anyone really need to see this side of me…?”

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