Instagram on Thursday announced the launch of its Creator Lab in India at an event in Mumbai. The creator-focused educational resource will feature popular Instagram users from India and will be available in English and Hindi, with captions in five other languages. The Meta-owned firm also announced the launch of three new features on the photo and video sharing platform, aimed at increasing engagement on the platform via 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 programme that was launched in 2019, the Instagram Creator Lab will offer resources for content creators in India, according to the company. Content for the Creator Lab will be sourced from other creators, according to details shared by Paras Sharma, Director (Global Partnerships), Meta India.
The Instagram Creator Lab will include 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 provide captions in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.
Instagram Launches Comments in Stories, Birthday Notes and Cutouts in DMs
The first feature launched by Instagram on Thursday is called Comments in Stories and it allows one to comment on a user’s stories, which are visible to other users. The company recently allowed users to leave comments on posts and reels that would only be visible to their followers, and the Comments in Stories feature expands on the same functionality.
These comments will disappear 24 hours after the story was posted, according to the company, according to the company. However, if a user adds a story to their favorites, the story will still be visible. Instagram also announced that users will be able to disable the comments section of the posts. Gadgets 360 can confirm that this feature has already been rolled out to some employees.
Instagram recently introduced the ability to use photo cutouts as stickers in Stories, and that feature extends to conversations on the platform. According to the company, users can send parts of photos from their camera roll to paste in DMs.
Another feature called Birthday Notes is coming soon to users on Instagram, and aims to increase access to the site. Users who choose to use this feature will see a small hat icon in the Instagram notes section for their birthday. According to Instagram, Birthday uses the same privacy settings as regular Instagram Posts, meaning users configure these settings before enabling the feature.
