Instagram's Messaging Feature Is Pretty Popular After All

Instagram Direct is Instagram's take on private direct messaging, allowing users to selectively send captioned photos without publishing them to their public feed. It's a feature that has arguably fallen by the wayside since its announcement seven months ago, but people could be warming up to the feature.

Instagram recently announced that more than 45 million users either sent or received an Instagram Direct message, and with over 200 million active users, that means around 1 in 4 users have at least given the feature a try.

Instagram has already overtaken Twitter in time spent in-app each month, but Instagram is still largely viewed as social media feed where the focus is on pictures rather than messaging.

Picture messaging is currently dominated by Snapchat, but if Instagram Direct continues to slowly grow, it could feasibly chip away at Snapchat's firm hold.

The real question, however, is how many people have both sent and received an Instagram Direct message, which would remove spam or creepy one-sided propositions from the equation.