Back in January last year, we learned that Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had plans to unify the infrastructure of all three of the company’s messaging services — WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. Even though reports from late last year suggested that the US Federal Trade Commission was planning on an injunction against Facebook’s interoperability rules, the company has now gone ahead and merged Instagram and Messenger chats.
According to a recent report from The Verge, several Instagram users in the US have noticed a new update pop-up on the app with the message “There’s a New Way to Message on Instagram” and a list of features including a “new colorful look for your chats,” additional emoji reactions, swipe-to-reply, and a feature that will allow users to “Chat with friends who use Facebook.”
Tapping on the update button at the bottom replaces Instagram’s DM icon with the Messenger logo and the chats are given a new look. However, for now, the update doesn’t allow Instagram users to message people on Facebook.
