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Instagram for Web Is Now Usable After Getting a Notification Panel

Instagram for Web starts looking like an actual service

Mar 23, 2016 10:58 GMT  ·  By
Instagram's new notification panel
   Instagram's new notification panel

Facebook gave Instagram a new feature yesterday by adding a notifications panel to the Web interface, finally making the social network's Web-based version interesting and useful, not just an afterthought.

The notifications panel is displayed as a bubble icon (with a heart inside) to the right side of the top menu, and clicking on it will show a drop-down panel where all recent profile activity is displayed.

The content is identical to what you see in the mobile apps, in the notifications section, which was previously unavailable to Web users.

With the ability to search, view recently uploaded photos, like photos, comment on pictures, edit your own profile, and search by location, Instagram for Web is starting to look like a fully-functional application and not just the place where people would go to check out Instagram shots on a bigger screen.

New notifications panel already available for everyone

The feature is already available for everyone. With it, the Web interface now stands on "almost" equal ground with the Android and iOS apps, having all the features except the big one, which is the ability to upload photos.

Letting users post photos from the Web is one of the most requested Instagram features, but Facebook has been timid about enabling it, fearing abuse from automated bots, which happens anyway on the mobile app, but to a lesser degree.

Besides Instagram's Web version, in recent months, Facebook has also been beefing up WhatsApp's Web presence. Facebook bought both companies, and many people initially thought the company would assimilate their features and close them down.

Just the opposite happened, and now Facebook is helping each service grow on its own. Last September, Facebook announced that Instagram has now over 400 million monthly active visitors, which is four times as much as it reported in February 2013.