Instagram Starts Merging Direct Messages with Facebook Messenger Chats

This will allow users to chat with their Facebook contacts from Instagram, and also use various features such as swipe to reply, react to messages with emojis, and enjoy a colorful new look for chats.

However, enabling the feature right now does nothing more than changing the Direct Messages' plane icon to the Messenger icon, and change chats to a more colorful look.

Facebook had announced a long time ago that it was looking to merge the chat features of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook over the long run. Perhaps, if users are asked, they would prefer having these chat features stay separated as not everyone is friends with the same people on these different social networks.

The company also plans to merge the voice and video calling features between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, down the road.

Although your birthdate is not shown on Instagram, Facebook's message clearly says that this change helps with personalization and ads.

While this change might make Facebook more competitive against other messaging services like iMessage and Telegram, there are some theories that might lead to further anti-trust concerns.

Original article
Author: Imran Hussain

Imran Hussain has been covering tech since 2008. His passion in technology started from beta testing Windows Longhorn and other Microsoft services and apps, and later expanded to smartphones and other platforms. He currently covers mobile tech, and still prefers beta releases over stable software updates. When not writing, buying or discussing tech, Imran enjoys gaming, movies, news and spending time with his family.

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