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Instagram intros private collection

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 18 Apr 2017
The latest Instagram update lets users save photos to private collections.
The latest Instagram update lets users save photos to private collections.

Picture-sharing social network Instagram is rolling out a feature this week that lets users organise saved posts into collections.

For the moment, the collections will remain private, only to be viewed by the user, with no plans by the company to monetise the feature yet.

Posts can be saved from any public account on the platform, which last year boasted more than 500 million active users.

The ability to collate posts into a single place is similar to rival Pinterest's core feature.

Facebook-owned networks have recently come under fire for copying ephemeral social network Snapchat's main feature: Stories. In August, a version of Stories was introduced to Instagram, and has since been integrated into WhatsApp, Messenger and the main Facebook app.

Last week, Instagram announced it had more than 200 million daily active Stories users. To coincide with the milestone, the company introduced more Snapchat-esque features, such as geolocation stickers that are only available in certain cities, and a 'hands-free' mode.

It seems the social media giant is now setting its target on other companies' popular features in an effort to keep eyeballs within its apps.

How it works

To save posts into private collections in Instagram, users need to tap and hold the bookmark icon underneath any post to save it directly to a collection.

"You can create and name a new collection when you save a post, or you can add it to one you've already created. You can also create a collection out of your existing saved posts," the company explained in a blog post.

"Tap the plus icon in the top right corner, give your collection a name and select the saved posts you'd like to add."

The collections can be accessed through the saved posts tab on the user's profile page.

Instagram introduced the ability to save posts (but not organise them) in December. It says since launch, 46% of users have saved at least one post.

The company says the new feature can be used to plan a road trip, revisit a favourite artist's work, or just to keep track of posts users want to remember.

This update will roll out to iOS and Android as part of Instagram version 10.16.

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