Instagram’s Big Mystery Event: What to Expect

Instagram has something big up its sleeve. The photo-sharing platform and Facebook subsidiary will make a rare appearance in New York City on Thursday for an unveiling, and no one knows for certain what its announcement will be. I do, however, have a pretty good idea.

My money is on a new, live communication platform within Instagram. Think Snapchat meets, well, Instagram. I suspect Instagram will introduce the following:

• Instagram Chats that include a messaging or chat function for real-time discussion.

• A suite of tools for enhancing images with text (MEME and standard captions) and more conversational imagery.

• A contact system overhaul that allows you to see, with permission, who else is live and ready to chat on Instagram.

• The ability to make chat-based or direct Instagrams temporary. In other words, they can disappear in one day, five minutes or two weeks. Perhaps those intervals will be adjustable by the user

• The option to make Instagrams private, shared between only a group of Instagram friends or with just one other user Read more...