Instagram Reportedly Working on New Messaging Feature

Since Facebook acquired Instagram last year, there has been much speculation about its plans for the popular photo-sharing app. Now, new reports indicate that Instagram is working on a messaging feature.

Citing an anonymous source, GigaOm reported last month that Instagram was preparing to launch a new private-messaging feature. It claimed the new feature would pop up in an updated version of Instagram before the end of this year.

A holiday launch, one of the busiest times on social media in terms of photo-sharing, would make perfect sense for a new Instagram messaging product.

On Friday, Techcrunch revealed information obtained from an anonymous source that shows several users have been given personal Instagram.com email addresses. The source, reportedly an ecommerce marketing professional, discovered the unique email addresses during a data-gathering request from a third-party company that collects social-networking information.

Currently, there are no further details about what the personal email addresses might mean, or how they would work for Instagram users.

But given Facebook’s recent moves toward offering Facebook.com email addresses as part of its service, such a change would fall right in line with the company’s strategy to tighten its grip on existing users by offering features that keep them linked to Facebook wherever they go.

Instagram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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