It's no secret that Instagram is a bit of a free-for-all in some respects. Every day, I fend off the usual swarm of bots and comments offering me services of questionable legality. Instagram seems to have recognized this, introducing several new tools today, all designed around increased control and positivity in the app experience.
New Comment Features
Instagram users now have the ability to disable comments on a per-post basis. If you expect a post to be controversial or it's garnering inappropriate comments, you can disable comments both before and after the post is created. To do so before, simply select "Advanced Settings" on the draft screen, and to do so after, select the "..." menu in the top right corner of an individual post.
The ability to turn off comments is a great step in allowing better user control.
In addition to allowing one to disable comments, Instagram is rolling out the ability to like comments in an effort to promote actions that "show support and encourage positivity throughout the community."
The comments system is not unlike Facebook, though threaded comments are still nonexistent.
Account Control and Reporting Features
In addition to the new commenting features, Instagram has also made it easier to remove followers from a private account. Before this update, if you had a private account (though if you're a photographer and don't have a public account, I urge you to reconsider), the only way to remove a follower you had approved was to block them. Now, one can easily remove the offending follower without going through the extra steps of blocking them.
Lastly, Instagram has added the ability to anonymously report friends who may be in danger of hurting themselves. The Instagram team will review the report and if necessary, will reach out to the friend with support options.
Altogether, the most recent update is a great step forward in enabling better user control and enhancing discussion on the popular image-sharing platform.
I wish they'd finally make it possible to post images from a PC.
I wish for it as well. But I guess Instagram will maintain the phone/smart device-only uploads as it was intended for their concept of sharing of images snapped in an instant. Even though Instagram is already being used widely and differently.
What I end up doing is just grabbing images directly from my camera (OTG cable), or grabbing from my other online portfolios like my website or flickr and then uploading through Intsagram so if that's their reasoning they need to revisit that decision.
Hey,
There is an app for Windows 10 to upload pictures to instagram: InstaPic
If you are on a tablet then the official Instagram app which was released lately should work, too On the PC the official app doesn't support uploading but commenting, liking, messaging, etc is supported.
Hope this helps!
Cheers from Vienna
EDIT: Uh I forgot to mention another option... You can use the Chrome extension ARC Welder to run the official Instagram Android app as a Chrome app and use all its functionality. :)
Oh yah. That InstaPic is actually nice!
This InstaPic is pretty cool, although nothing in my feed is showing up. My own images and the explore tab shows up though. Weird. I'll try switching it off and on again a few times.
I use Gramblr and it has been working great.
Good God; yes please! Your comment to Instagram God's ear.
check out http://statimgram.com
http://www.lrinstagram.com/
It is a LR plugin that allows you to export directly to LR. What I really love about it is typing my hash tags on a real keyboard. I hardly post from my phone anymore. It is free to try. The paid version doesn't really give you anything more, but I supported it because it is such a game changer for me.
I have the plugin, but I stopped using it several weeks ago because Instagram has seemingly blocked photos uploaded from Lightroom from being visible in hashtag search. I noticed after my work was getting a lot less likes than usual (or none at all), and my suspicions were confirmed when the developer's website was updated. Still no word on a fix. For now, I'm uploading my work to iCloud and sharing from my phone.
Instagram is a universal windows app. You can install it on any Windows 10 PC. Just look it up in the store. It lets you upload content, just make sure it's in your camera roll folder.
It is my understanding that you cannot upload to Instagram from a Windows device unless it has a rear camera. I was unable to upload work from my Windows 10 PC but I was able to do so from my Surface. Has this changed?
It would be nice if they had clickable links like this http://MohrPublicity.com (the place that does my Instagram promotions for followers) so that people could visit referenced sites.
Wish they would crack down on automated follow unfollow people. So many annoying photographers follow and comment every time I post a photo then poof, unfollowed an hour later. Its not that hard for them to say, "if a user follows then unfollows someone within 24 hours they get a ding, get X number of dings in Y number of days and you're suspended for a week"
"cool post!"
I know what you mean. You can usually tell them apart when they just follow your page without liking any of your work first. If they unfollow me, I unfollow them.