Instagram may soon bring in its own Snap Map-like feature

Instagram has been in the news for introducing a host of upgrades in the past few weeks.

From allowing users to create AI versions of themselves to expanding the number of slides on its carousal post, several changes have made their way to the smartphone app. But that doesn’t seem to be all, as the social media platform appears to be testing yet another Snapchat-like feature for its users.

Instagram friend map location sharing feature: What's there to know?

According to The Verge, Instagram’s friend map will typically work like its rival Snapchat’s ‘Snap Map’ feature. But unlike the latter, Instagram’s friend map will have defined privacy settings.

The report mentions how users will be able to share their location with a specific group of people, close friends or only followers that follow back. Snapchat, on the other hand, could only let users post their location publicly.

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The feature was spotted early this year, and the platform was reportedly also experimenting with a similar development in 2012. However, it was later discontinued due to low engagement.

The publication also details how apart from letting chosen followers see where you are, you will also be able to add notes to the location or the place. Apart from that, the stories or posts with the said location will also be visible on the friend map.

Despite the communication remaining end-to-end encrypted, there are obvious privacy concerns still remain to be answered by the platform. That said, there also seems to be a ‘Ghost Mode’ in the pipeline to disable your last known location on the app.

When will Instagram's Friend Map feature be available for everyone?

The report mentions how Instagram is testing the feature with a small subset of users. With the feature being in a limited testing phase, it is hard to tell when or if it will make it to a larger stream of audience.

That said, the company mentions how its primary focus revolves around doing away with privacy concerns and it may just launch once that they are ruled out.