Instagram is in the process of developing a “Friend Map” feature, as confirmed by a Meta representative on Monday. Similar to Snapchat’s Snap Map, this opt-in feature would permit users to view the real-time locations of their friends. The company underscores that the feature is an internal prototype and hasn’t entered external testing yet. The discovery was initially made by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, known for uncovering social media features in development before their official release.
Should Instagram proceed with the official launch of the Friend Map, it would be echoing another popular feature from Snapchat, akin to its replication of Snapchat’s core Stories functionality in 2016. Additionally, Instagram would be encroaching upon Apple’s “Find My” feature, enabling users to track the whereabouts of friends and family. By introducing this feature, Instagram aims to provide users with more incentives to spend time within its app, potentially reducing their reliance on other services.
Moreover, Instagram stands a chance to draw in users who previously enjoyed Zenly, a social map application acquired and subsequently closed down by Snap in the previous year.
Screenshots posted on Threads by Paluzzi reveal that Instagram’s Friend Map would offer users the ability to dictate who can view their location. The screenshots also suggest that location data would be end-to-end encrypted. Users would have the option to share their location with followers who reciprocally follow them, their “Close Friends” list, or no one at all. The map would also offer a “Ghost Mode” feature to conceal the user’s last active location.
The Friend Map would facilitate the exchange of brief messages, or “Notes,” visible to others on the map. Currently, Instagram Notes appear as short messages at the top of the direct messaging feed. However, if the Friend Map is rolled out, users will have the opportunity to post these short updates on the map. The Notes feature on the map could serve various purposes, such as informing friends about an exciting pop-up shop or sharing details about a newly discovered restaurant.
This development coincides with Instagram’s efforts to enrich its in-app mapping capabilities. In late 2022, the company introduced a searchable map experience enabling users to explore popular tagged locations nearby and filter results by specific categories like restaurants, cafes, and beauty salons. The launch of the searchable map followed remarks by Google’s senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan, who highlighted that young users were increasingly turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok for discovering new places, instead of relying on Google Search or Maps.
Having made inroads into Google’s core business, Instagram appears poised to challenge Snapchat and Apple with its forthcoming Friend Map feature.
