Instagram's Craziest New Feature: Share Your LIVE Location with Friends - But Be Warned...

Meta-owned social media platform Instagram has introduced a feature that makes it easier for users to share locations with friends and family via DMs in real-time. Users can now easily share live locations in their direct messages, which wasn't available before this update. The feature first rolled out in the 'Maps App', then on other social apps such as WhatsApp and lastly its here on the widely used social media app - Instagram.

This feature lets users share their real-time location with each other in direct messages, making it ideal for scenarios where users are required to share locations with other people for pickups or meeting places. However, Instagram has incorporated a feature that manually allows users to control who they want to share location with and also for how long they would like to share location for. This feature does not have an open-ended end date - the app requires a maximum duration limit while location sharing. This can range from 15 minutes to eight hours. This duration is set with the intention of optimizing timelines and also safeguard the user while location sharing.

Further, with respect to user controls - users have the option of revoking location access to individuals anytime during the sharing timeline. The location-sharing feature also lets users select whether they want to continuously share their locations with particular people - or only at specific times or during specific events such as road trips or live events. Moreover, similar controls have also been implemented across many social messaging apps like 'WhatsApp' - allowing friends to locate in real-time for an optimum duration of eight hours.

As for its usage, Instagram users can initiate a location-sharing session with friends by selecting them and simply clicking on the '+' icon then selecting 'Location' from the list. Then they'd follow by selecting an image of themselves with their accurate location. Users can always limit the shared timing - from as low as a quarter past an hour up to an eight-hour timeline.

Several updates are on the way to revamp Instagram, and these changes follow Instagram's promise of updating and optimizing its features - and this update will likely gain more traffic to its platform. It will get more interesting because the Meta-owned app is now willing to compete directly with its own set of rival apps.