After years of focusing mostly on its mobile App, Instagram is at long last now starting to allow users to post from their computers. The feature has gone live for a number of users already including myself.
“We know that many people access Instagram from their computer,” an Instagram spokesperson said. “To improve that experience, we’re now testing the ability to create a Feed post on Instagram with their desktop browser.”
Why now? Apparently over the course of the pandemic, the company saw a rise in people browsing Instagram from their computers rather than their phones.
To see if the test is live for you, login to Instagram on your web browser and look for a new “plus” icon in the icon tray on the top right. The test isn’t available to everyone and it only allows users to create posts for the main feed.
The new test feature is an additional feature for its desktop product: Instagram added the ability to view Stories on the web in 2017 and added direct messaging to desktop late last year.
“… We haven’t found any evidence that the Instagram desktop web experience cannibalizes engagement from the native apps,” a data scientist with Instagram observed with the launch of web messaging.
“In fact, it’s quite the opposite , users who use both interfaces spend more time on each interface, compared to users who use each interface exclusively.”