Back in 2017, Instagram launched a bookmarking feature called “collections,” which allows users to organize the posts they save into private groupings for easier access. Now, Instagram is introducing a new feature that lets users create collections with their friends.
The social network told TechCrunch in an email that it’s rolling out “collaborative collections,” a way for people to connect with friends over their shared interests by saving posts to a collaborative collection in their group chat or a one-on-one DM. In other words, you can now share posts with a friend or a group of friends and save them in a dedicated space.
The new feature could be seen as a way for Instagram to rival Pinterest, which has offered a “Group boards” feature since 2018, letting users collaborate with each other on the platform.
“Now when you go to save a piece of content on Feed or from your DMs, you’ll see a new option to create a collaborative collection,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said on Wednesday in the IG Updates Channel on Instagram. “From there you can give the collection a custom name and share the collection with your friends. Once they receive it, your friends can start adding content from reels, Explore, Feed and DMs to the collection as well.”
Any member of the chat can add or remove posts from the collection. Users also have the option to add directly to a collaborative collection posts shared in a chat. If there is a post in a chat that you want to add to a collaborative collection, you can tap the bookmark icon that appears next to the post and then either add it to a current collaborative collection or create a new one.
Collaborative collections is a welcome addition to the platform and has numerous use cases. For instance, the feature could be used to help a group of friends plan a trip by allowing them to save posts of places they want to see or things they want to try when visiting a new place. Or, collaborative collections could be used for day-to-day things like curating a dedicated space where you and your friends can share posts about your mutual interests, such as memes, baking recipes, workout tips, craft ideas and more.
The launch of the new feature comes as Instagram recently introduced a new way for users to connect with others on the social media platform. Last month, the company rolled out a new broadcast chat feature on Instagram called “Channels.” The feature lets creators share public, one-to-many messages to directly engage with their followers. Channels support text, images, polls, reactions and more.
Earlier this month, the social network began testing a new feature that lets users quickly access your recently shared reels in order to make it easier for users to reshare a reel they liked to another friend at a later time.
Source @TechCrunch
