Instagram may be developing Snap Map dupe to locate your friends
Originality is overrated, anyway. Instagram is reportedly going to do what it does best: blatantly copy another social media site's feature.
Think about it. Stories were ripped from Snapchat. Reels are a TikTok dupe. It copied Notes and Threads from Twitter/X and Candid from BeReal. The latest dupe? Snap Map. That's right, Insta is reportedly going back to its roots and taking inspiration from Snapchat.
Software engineer Alessandro Paluzzi posted on X that Instagram was working on a Friends Map. This follows, Paluzzi noted, a related nearby feature.
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Paluzzi noted the feature would be opt-in and that your location would be end-to-end encrypted. But basically, you would reportedly be able to see where your friends were located on a map, just like Snap Map.
Now, to be clear, this feature has not yet been released and amounts to a rumor at this time. The Verge noted, however, that Paluzzi "discovers a lot of Instagram features before they’re announced."
If Paluzzi ultimately proves to be right, well, then, you'll have yet another Snap feature on Instagram.
Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
