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Instagram

Instagram takes on Twitter and Snapchat with rival direct messaging service

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By John Glenday, Reporter

December 13, 2013 | 1 min read

Photo-sharing network Instagram has launched its own direct messaging service in response to similar moves from rivals such as Twitter and Snapchat – not to mention its owners, Facebook.

Instagram Direct will enable users to send snaps to as many as 15 friends in one go as part of efforts to provide visual emphasis to people’s online conversations, drawing custom away from free-text service WhatsApp and Twitter’s Vine video service.

Responding to suggestions that the launch would merely cannibalise Facebook traffic Brian Blau, a research director at Gartner, said: “[The messaging service] may draw people to Instagram, but they will remain in the Facebook ecosystem. As long as they can monetise those users, Facebook is probably fine with that. They couldn’t buy Snapchat, so they made a feature which does 80pc of that.”

Snapchat may end up proving to be Instagram’s most potent rival after gaining considerable traction amongst teens thanks to its killer app, self-destructing messages – a key driver of the so-called ‘sexting’ phenomenon.

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