Instagram live could soon let you start a live stream broadcast with a friend

Instagram is working on a feature to allow a person to conduct a live stream with another person. The person who starts the live stream will be able to invite someone else to be a guest so that they can both share the live stream. To the viewer of the Instagram live stream, both of the people hosting the live stream will appear on the screen.

The screen will be split in two to show both faces of the hosts. It will look similar to how the split screen feature on some phones works which allows a person to use two apps at the same time. However, the split screen will be done vertically as Instagram only works in portrait mode. This feature of Instagram live is currently available on the iOS version of the app and being tested by a few group of people.

To use the feature, you have to start the Instagram live video first. Then on the screen, you will see a new icon with two smiley faces which you can click and get an option to select a person who you’d like to invite as a guest to the live stream. The invited person will then receive a notification and be able to take part in the live stream with you.

You can only host an Instagram live video with one person at a time. However, you can then remove the person you added and invite another one. The number of people you will host throughout the live stream with will be limited to how many people you will be able to invite within the set time limit of a live stream which is about an hour.

Earlier this year, Facebook, the company that owns Instagram, launched a feature just like this on the iOS version of their app. On Facebook, it works just like that but it also supports horizontal split screen of the hosts of the live stream. According to reports, the feature was introduced to Facebook because the company saw that a lot of people were doing live streams with their friends.

So it seemed like a needed feature as some people are more comfortable going live when they have a friend with them. Apart from that, similar to Facebook live audio, such a feature makes conducting interviews a whole lot more accessible to anyone with a Facebook or Instagram account. You can interview a person from another continent and share it with your followers on Instagram.

Unfortunately, some features that are good only come to iOS first and stay there for a prolonged period of time. It makes sense why they bring such features to iOS first because that’s where they have their largest market share of people who use such features. So if they work on that platform and are received well maybe they will be rolled out to the Android counterpart of their apps.