Originality is overrated, anyway. Instagram is reportedly going to do what it does best: blatantly copy another social media site’s feature.
Think about it. Stories were ripped from Snapchat. Reels are a TikTok dupe. It copied Notes and Threads from Twitter/X and Candid from BeReal. The latest dupe? Snap Map. That’s right, Insta is reportedly going back to its roots and taking inspiration from Snapchat.
Software engineer Alessandro Paluzzi posted on X that Instagram was working on a Friends Map. This follows, Paluzzi noted, a related nearby feature.
Paluzzi noted the feature would be opt-in and that your location would be end-to-end encrypted. But basically, you would reportedly be able to see where your friends were located on a map, just like Snap Map.
Now, to be clear, this feature has not yet been released and amounts to a rumor at this time. The Verge noted, however, that Paluzzi “discovers a lot of Instagram features before they’re announced.”
If Paluzzi ultimately proves to be right, well, then, you’ll have yet another Snap feature on Instagram.
