It's been teased before, but Instagram has now officially announced that live video streaming is coming to the popular photo-sharing app. Instagram made things official in a blog post, stating that you'll be able to start broadcasting video right from Instagram Stories.
From Instagram:
It's easy to go live — just swipe right from feed to open the camera, tap the "Start Live Video" button and start sharing for up to an hour. Your friends may get a notification when you go live so they can tune in. While you're live, you can pin a comment for everyone to see or turn comments off altogether.
Once you go live, your people who follows you will see the word "Live" underneath your profile picture up in the Stories bar. From there, they can tap to tune in and start commenting and showering you with likes.
On top of live video, Instagram has also announced it's taking a step closer to Snapchat territory with disappearing photos and videos in Instagram Direct. You'll now be able to snap a photo or video, mark it up and send it off to a friend (or group of friends) where it will disappear after they view it. Of course, like Snapchat, you'll get a notification if a friend replays or screenshots what you send them.
Instagram says that live video will start rolling out over "the net few weeks," while disappearing messages will start rolling out now. There's no word on whether the Windows app will see the updates (or when), but it seems likely. We'll update you if and when the features do start rolling out to the Windows app.
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