Instagram has been testing some silly new features

If you are a big fan of Instagram and like it just the way it is, you might be bemused by this report, which covers some rather unusual updates Instagram has been testing. The first of these strange updates has had some of the Instagram users that have been involved in the tests pointedly asking if Instagram is Twitter now and the second just seems like it is a nightmare waiting to happen. Let’s take a deeper look.

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The first feature was spotted in the wild by Twitter user Owen Williams. Williams shared screenshots of a new feature called Notes to his Twitter feed and his replies were not very positive at all.

The screenshots show a horizontally scrollable Notes ribbon that sits up above your direct message inbox. Notes allow Instagram users to post short 60-character long updates that are then left for connections to see. Yep, they sound just like a much shorter tweet that won’t really serve any purpose on the app. It also isn’t very clear how this feature would work with Instagram’s new feed UI, which shows full-screen images and videos in a similar style to TikTok.

If Williams’s replies are anything to go by, which are filled with words like “confused” and even “hate” then maybe this isn’t something that will be rolling out to all Instagram users just yet.

The second feature in testing that has been spotted in the wild is the ability for users to allow ads to show on their profiles. Interestingly, the screenshot shared by Alessandro Paluzzi also has an option for selecting a Payout account, which would seem to indicate that users will be able to earn a percentage of the revenue these ads will raise.

These are two ‘interesting’ updates to say the least. At the moment they are both still in the very early stages of testing, meaning we likely won’t see them get a general rollout for quite some time. If you like the sound of these features though and would like to know when they will be released for all Instagram users, you should bookmark our Instagram news page and subscribe to push notifications.