Facebook Replaces Instagram’s Direct Icon With The Messenger Chat To Enable Cross-Messaging among its Family of Apps

Last year, Facebook announced it's interoperability plans regarding Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and its WhatsApp messaging service. Now, the company has started to implement its plans to unify Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. According to a recent report, the company has started merging Messenger and Instagram chats.

In the latest update, Facebook has begun integrating Instagram and Facebook Messenger chats. The change was first spotted by The Verge, and the company has rolled out the new change for iOS as well as Android users. The recent update on Instagram changes the in-app messaging feature and merges it with Facebook Messenger. The Verge reported on Friday, that many of its employees noticed an updated popped up in the Instagram app with the message that there is a new way to message on the Instagram app.

Once a user hits the update, the regular Direct icon in the top right corner of the Instagram app is replaced by the Messenger logo. The new update contains several key changes such as a colorful look for chats, swipe to reply to messages, extra emoji reactions, and chat with friends who use the Facebook app. However, it is currently not possible to message Facebook users from the Instagram app.

As for the other new features, the changes are already reflecting with the latest update since the DM icon in the Instagram app has been replaced by the Messenger logo, and the chats on the Instagram app also appear colorful with purple and blue colors used for messages. The Messenger application allows users to customize the colors of different chats.

Back in the year 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion, and in 2014, the company acquired the WhatsApp messaging app for $19 billion. Back in June, the social media giant started working on integrating WhatsApp, Messenger chats, and Instagram Direct. Recently, the company rolled out Messenger Rooms, and Facebook also confirmed integrating Rooms shortcut on WhatsApp as well as Instagram. However, this is only a shortcut that opens Rooms, and users still have to sign in to their Facebook account to create a Room. But people can join a Messenger Room even without a Facebook account. The company has currently integrated Messenger Rooms with WhatsApp on the web, and the Rooms integration is yet to arrive on the smartphone version of the WhatsApp messaging app.



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