Soon, you'll be able to share group stories on Instagram
What's the story
After debuting Threads messaging app and AR-powered shopping features, Instagram is testing group stories. The feature, as the name suggests, will let you share stories with a select group of three or four friends. It is similar to the capability that was available on Facebook but was shuttered last month. Here's all you need to know about it.
Feature
Instagram code revealed group story sharing
Popular app reverse-engineer Jane Manchun Wong - known for discovering interesting features in Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook - recently spotted the code for the group story capability in a test build of the Instagram app. On digging further, she was able to try the feature out and capture some screenshots showing how it would work and what it would look like.
Working
How you'd be able to share story to a group
The group sharing option would appear in the camera interface of Instagram, along with the regular buttons that let you share a story with everyone or with select close friends. So, when you take a photograph from Story camera and click on this new button, the photo-sharing app will prompt you to pick a group to share the photo story with.
Advantage
This can come handy in sharing topic-specific stories
The new feature from Instagram could come handy in sharing stories on groups related to specific topics. For instance, if there's an existing Instagram group for a friend's birthday, you could share photographs from the party as stories. In case the story is targeted at followers who are not part of a group, you could create a group from the story button as well.
Availability
No word on availability yet
Having said that, you should note that Instagram is just testing this feature and there is no word on when or if it will be available as part of a stable release of the app. The social network works on and tests a number of features every year but only a few of them land in the final version.