Instagram Launches Voice Messaging in Direct

After it was first spotted in testing some six months ago, Instagram has now announced that it's rolling out voice messaging within Direct, providing another way for users to stay in touch. The process of recording and sending a voice message is fairly straight-forward - hold down the new microphone icon within the messaging UI and you can record your message, which, when sent, will appear as a wave-form within the chat thread. As reported by TechCrunch, voice messages can be up to a minute long, and remain permanently listenable rather than disappearing. Voice messages will also work in both one-on-one and group chats.