Instagram is working on allowing users to conduct video chats by using their Facebook avatars.
The social network hardly needs a lesson on how to make something successful and popular. It's no stranger to ideas being met with resounding success. However, I highly doubt anyone at Facebook ever foresaw just how successful Avatars would end up becoming. More importantly, Facebook also had a probably difficult time coping with the fact that this win came from nowhere near its target demographic. Instead of the social network's teenagers and young adults taking to the new Avatars trend, it ended up being the adults and baby boomers that really enjoyed Avatars. Much like Minion images attached to witty captions and memes, Avatars started getting a similar following of their own.
One might endeavor to ask what Avatars ever are in the first place. Well, Avatars are Facebook's attempts at allowing users to create personalized online representations of users, i.e. avatars. These can all be personalized by a number of different facial features, skin tones, and other relevant accessories in order to have the avatar best represent its associated user. The feature's popularity across Facebook caused it to be transferred to WhatsApp and Instagram. While Instagram didn't really see the usage of Avatars outside of the occasional story, WhatsApp's entire library of images was only further supplemented with new ammo.
Adding avatars to Instagram's video chats is Facebook closely trying its hand yet again with the demographic that was supposed to enjoy Avatars in the first place: the youth. While the feature itself needs no further expansion or embellishment, doing rather well for itself, parent company Meta would obviously still want a successful feature to be at least equally successive across all relevant platforms.
This addition of Avatars to video chat is a feature currently under A/B beta testing. Screenshots shared by Twitter user Hammod Oh were further corroborated by social media journalist Matt Navarra. We may be seeing the future across all regions in the future, even if said future is clearly months away as we speak.
Read next: Alessandro Paluzzi Shares What Instagram Is Cooking For Its Upcoming Updates
The social network hardly needs a lesson on how to make something successful and popular. It's no stranger to ideas being met with resounding success. However, I highly doubt anyone at Facebook ever foresaw just how successful Avatars would end up becoming. More importantly, Facebook also had a probably difficult time coping with the fact that this win came from nowhere near its target demographic. Instead of the social network's teenagers and young adults taking to the new Avatars trend, it ended up being the adults and baby boomers that really enjoyed Avatars. Much like Minion images attached to witty captions and memes, Avatars started getting a similar following of their own.
One might endeavor to ask what Avatars ever are in the first place. Well, Avatars are Facebook's attempts at allowing users to create personalized online representations of users, i.e. avatars. These can all be personalized by a number of different facial features, skin tones, and other relevant accessories in order to have the avatar best represent its associated user. The feature's popularity across Facebook caused it to be transferred to WhatsApp and Instagram. While Instagram didn't really see the usage of Avatars outside of the occasional story, WhatsApp's entire library of images was only further supplemented with new ammo.
Adding avatars to Instagram's video chats is Facebook closely trying its hand yet again with the demographic that was supposed to enjoy Avatars in the first place: the youth. While the feature itself needs no further expansion or embellishment, doing rather well for itself, parent company Meta would obviously still want a successful feature to be at least equally successive across all relevant platforms.
This addition of Avatars to video chat is a feature currently under A/B beta testing. Screenshots shared by Twitter user Hammod Oh were further corroborated by social media journalist Matt Navarra. We may be seeing the future across all regions in the future, even if said future is clearly months away as we speak.
Read next: Alessandro Paluzzi Shares What Instagram Is Cooking For Its Upcoming Updates