In response to backlash over the invasion of algorithmic, recommended content into Instagram's feed, Instagram today unveiled a number of new features intended to make it easier for users to keep up with their real-world friends. The company is now rolling out several significant changes, including most notably an addition called Notes — a feature Meta had considered turning into a Twitter competitor, according to a recent news report. You can also update friends through text and emoji alone using Notes, and so there's another format for social updates beside the images and videos Instagram is so known for. Other rollouts that are new are taking place in Stories, introducing new ways to share with groups.

Among the many new features to be unveiled, probably one of the most exciting features will be Instagram Notes - a form of text-based only communication. Of course, as its name and feature remind, this looks decidedly like Twitter, although this time the interface is more dramatically different. In Instagram, users can drop a note by going to the top of their inbox and tapping the followers they follow back (aka mutuals) or others from their existing "Close Friends" list. They will then compose the note itself with 60 characters of just text or emoji. The note will appear at the top of friends' inboxes for 24 hours, and replies will come through as DMs.

Instagram said it learned people like to have an easy way to begin conversations and so even though the format is far different than the real-time feed of Twitter, there may be some overlap on the use case because the company described the feature as something users can share "what they're up to," or ask for recommendations, which is similar to a prompt Twitter uses today. For example, when you go to write a tweet, the app solicits you to share "What's happening? " And like Notes, it has an encapsulated text input limit.

(Though that limit will now grow substantially, Twitter owner Elon Musk said.) Meanwhile, The New York Times reported last week how Meta was considering turning Instagram Notes, which has been in testing for many months, into a more fully fledged Twitter rival to capitalize on the chaos at Twitter following Elon Musk's acquisition. The report said the company had been weighing whether Notes should even be its own standalone app or another feed inside Instagram.

For now, though, it appears that Instagram is deploying Notes unchanged.

Another feature chasing after Instagram Stories goes into the "Add Yours" feature that the company launched last year. It nudges other people to jump into the action by contributing their own iteration. Now, Instagram is testing a new feature in which you can specifically invite friends to participate in it by tapping "pass it on" when you see a trend you think they would like.

According to the feature, a way has been found against one of the major menaces from TikTok-the menace where users replicate dances, skits, and even AI effects set with music by posting their respective take.

The social network has also started testing "Candid," a way friends can share Stories that show up only to others who share their own Candids. It's an obviously competitive feature to BeReal, which also locks content from friends behind a blur screen until you post it too. And like BeReal, Candid sends around daily reminders to post one of your own. TikTok is also trying such a feature with its "TikTok Now" posts that appear in users' feeds.

This isn't the first time Instagram has tried to take on BeReal, which has been gaining traction with younger Gen Z users. The company tested other features earlier this year, including one called IG Candid Challenges, which is similar to what's now become Candid. It also more shamelessly ripped off BeReal with a dual camera feature it simply called Dual.

According to Instagram, a Candid can be captured directly from the Stories camera or the multi-author Story at the top of the feed. The feature can also come through the daily notification reminder for users.

Two other new features revolve around how the service improves group sharing. Group Profiles are a whole new kind of profile that allows people to share both posts and stories with groups of friends. That is shared content which will post only to Group Profile and not to the one of yours. And that seems to address some way how many more you would find younger folks currently already using Instagram — for instance, posting content to a school group, for instance, or around some thematic subject. Earlier, only those having the login for the account would have administered these accounts and perhaps edited some content themselves from submissions.

Group Profiles may encourage more contribution as barriers to posting are absent. Collaborative Collections are another new form of connecting with a group of friends. It shall be possible in this instance, to let the people with a common interest connect via saving posts under a new "collaborative collection" in groups or by 1:1 DM.

Users can contribute to the collaborative collection: save posts they see from their feed or share via DM, then save.

It's basically an extension of the over five-year-old Collections feature, but one that helps you build that collection with others. This may be helpful in gathering travel ideas for a group trip or sharing recipes, and so much more.

Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement through Instagram itself. The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that the Notes are indeed coming to iOS and Android users, but the other features are just early tests. Group Profiles are only in testing for Canada, Chile, and Taiwan. All other features are in testing with a small percentage of people around the world, we're told.

The only exception is for the Collaborative Collections wherein the test group member started collecting with a non-test and invite a new person so then they will be added into the test automatically. "Connecting with others is why people come to Instagram," the Meta blog post stated—an acknowledgment, of sorts, of the backlash the app saw from users who are unhappy with the irrelevant and intrusive content in their Instagram feeds. This culminated in Instagram actually rolling back some changes after Kylie Jenner and other celebs publicly complained about the app trying to be too much like TikTok.

The company has decided to stop the tests of full-screen posts and decrease the amount of recommended content due to complaints from users. The new set of features refocuses on social sharing with friends, and seems a better move in terms of acknowledging what people actually want from Instagram — to connect with friends, not just to be entertained, as on TikTok.