Instagram Adds New Collab Features and Effects to Reels

Instagram on Tuesday announced new features coming this week, including co-authoring feature Collabs for the mobile app and video posting for the web desktop version. Reels also will get two new effects for social videos.

According to TechCrunch, mobile users will be able to invite another account to collaborate on a post or reel, which then will be shared with both sets of followers. The post or Reel also will share the same view count, like count, and comments section.

Collabs actually made its first appearance back in July as part of a small-scale test that only was made available to a small number of people. The testing phase continues for Collabs, but it’s now seeing a wider rollout. Instagram has yet to say when the feature officially will release on the mobile app.

The web version of Instagram now will enable users to create posts. The previous version only allowed people to scroll through feeds, check their messages, and reply to them.

Starting Thursday, users can post photos or short videos of under a minute from their web browser. The company has yet to indicate whether the desktop version will support long-form video posting on Instagram Video.

Also arriving on Thursday, the mobile version of Reels will be getting two new effects: Superbeat and Dynamic Lyrics. The former uses AI to add special effects according to the beat of the music, while the latter displays 3D lyrics that also follow a song’s flow.