Instagram Creator Lab Launched in India Alongside These New Features
Instagram announced the launch of its Creator Lab in India at an event in Mumbai on Thursday. The creator-focused educational resource will feature popular Instagram users from India and will be available in English and Hindi, with subtitles in five additional languages. The Meta company also announced the launch of three new features on the photo and video sharing platform aimed at increasing engagement on the platform through Stories, Direct Messages (DMs) and Notes — while also highlighting recent features that are already rolling out to users.
Instagram Creator Lab Launched in India
Building on the company’s Born on Instagram program launched in 2019, Instagram Creator Lab will offer resources for content creators in India, the company said. Content for the Creator Lab will come from other creators, according to details shared by Paras Sharma, Director (Global Partnerships), Meta India.
The Instagram Creator Lab will feature content from 14 creators across the country. They will share insights and strategies for aspiring creators, and the content will be available in Hindi and English, while Meta will also offer subtitles in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
Instagram launches comments in stories, birthday posts and clippings in DMs
The first feature Instagram launched on Thursday is called Comments in Stories, and it lets you leave comments on a user’s stories, which are visible to other users. The company recently allowed users to comment on posts and reels that would only be visible to their followers, and the Comments in Stories feature expands on that same functionality.
Instagram Stories Reactions and Birthday Notes Features
These comments will disappear 24 hours after the story is posted, the company said. However, if a user adds a story to their Highlights, the comments will remain visible. Instagram also says it will give users the ability to disable the commenting feature on stories. Gadgets 360 was able to confirm that the feature has already rolled out to some staff members.
Instagram recently rolled out the ability to use cropped images as stickers in Stories, and now the same functionality is expanding to chats on the platform. Users will soon be able to send cropped images from their camera roll as stickers in DMs, the company said.
Another feature called Birthday Notes will soon be rolling out to users on Instagram, and is aimed at increasing engagement on the platform. Users who opt in to use the feature will see a small hat icon appear in the Instagram Notes section on their birthday. According to Instagram, Birthday Notes will use the same privacy settings as regular Instagram notes, meaning users will likely want to configure those settings before enabling the feature.
