Instagram DMs add live location sharing and nicknames

Instagram is adding the ability to share your live location with friends in your DMs for up to one hour at a time so you can find each other when arriving at concerts, outings, and other gatherings. The feature works within Instagram’s direct messages, which also gets a few other new features, including sticker packs and nicknames.

Instagram says you can share your location privately with others through DMs, either one-to-one or within group chats, and the feature is off by default. It’s similar to the location-sharing features in Snapchat’s SnapMap, which includes the ability to share pictures with friends on a map. For now, these features are only available in “select countries” (Instagram does not list where.)

You can also now give yourself and your friends nicknames in your DMs, including within group chats. You can lock friends out of that ability if you don’t like what they named you, and the feature only stays within specific chats — so outsiders can’t see each other’s provided nicknames.

DMs have 17 new sticker packs with over 300 new stickers, too, which you can drop into chats with your friends. You can even mark the stickers friends send you as favorites inside chats, re-use them, and make your own with the cutouts feature or generate them with AI.

Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, said last week that people are using messages more than the create button, so the company is now testing a new placement for the chat icon that puts it on the bottom and center of the app.