Recently it was discovered that Instagram is testing out a new “Type” feature for Stories which basically lets users create more text-focused Stories. However it seems that’s not all Instagram is testing because now it seems that they are testing out another feature called “Active At” for its direct messaging feature.
So what is “Active At”? Basically this is similar to the “Last Seen” feature on WhatsApp and “Active At” on Facebook Messenger, where it tells users when the last time the other user was online. Given that Instagram isn’t exactly used for instant messaging, we’re not sure how useful the feature might be.
However it could be useful for users trying to get in touch with businesses, where they can see how active that business is in terms of responding to instant messages, which could be an indication of whether or not they’ll get a reply on Instagram. However as with all features that are being tested, there’s no guarantee that this will make the cut, or if it does, there’s no word on when we will see it released, so we guess we’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime there are reports of other features that WhatsApp is testing, such as screenshot notifications for when someone takes a screenshot of their stories.