Nearly three years after it rolled out a Web version of its photo-sharing service, and a month after it gave that Web version a much-needed revamp, Instagram has introduced a search feature we’re certain will get plenty of use.
The developer team have clearly been working hard on Instagram’s Web offering of late, with the new search tool taking the service a step closer to its full-featured smartphone app.
Announced Monday via its Twitter account, the new search feature enables logged-in users to hunt down images and videos by hashtag, location, and user name, with results appearing in a list below the search box.
The introduction of search for Instagram’s Web offering comes just over a month after the Facebook-owned company showed some serious love to its website, unveiling a brighter, cleaner design displaying larger images than the preceding, stale-looking format.
Instagram for Web is designed to be complementary to Instagram’s mobile app, and the recent revamp certainly makes for a much more enjoyable browsing experience than before. While the features and layout for the Web version have improved significantly, the ability to edit and post content to your Instagram account remains only with the mobile app.
Instagram launched back in 2010 before bing acquired by Facebook two years later for around $1 billion. Available for iOS and Android users, it now has more than 300 million users, with spin-off apps such as Hyperlapse and Layout also adding to the San Francisco company’s body of work.
