Instagram’s update to its messaging tool means the end of ‘@-mentioning’ friends

The update also includes letting people send those oversized emojis made popular on its sister social network, Facebook, and a quick camera tool so people can respond to a picture with another picture without it being uploaded to the public stream.

Arguably, the biggest change is the introduction of an arrow button to photos on the stream so people can share pictures with each other (or to groups), finally eliminating the annoying habit of tagging friends’ handles in the photo’s comments.

That’s a major change because Instagram estimates that tagging friends, or “@-mentioning” as they call it, makes up 40 percent of comments on pictures. Just take a look at a recent photo shared by the app’s most followed user, Kim Kardashian. It’s littered with tags (and spam, but one improvement at a time, we guess!).

Instagram has seemingly taken a page from its competitors. For example, the back-and-forth photo-sending tool is reminiscent of Snapchat, although they don’t disappear. And the ability to send photos privately mimics Twitter’s new tool that lets people share tweets through Direct Messages, making it easier for people to talk privately.

It’s also the latest in major changes on Instagram. Over the past two months, it added landscape photos to be uploaded, a useful Explore tool and opening up its advertising platform so it’s affordable for brands big and small to advertise to the app’s 300 million monthly users.

Images via Instagram.