Instagram Thursday announced a major update to Instagram Stories, with the addition of links, @ mentions and Boomerang content.
Support for links enables content creators to allow users to dive deeper into their content via links to articles or songs, for example, and this feature will initially launch as a test with only verified accounts. Instagram said in a blog post detailing the updates:
Watching someone?s story and want to dig deeper" You may spot ?See More? links at the bottom of some stories. This is a test that lets verified accounts add links so it?s easy to learn more. From discovering the latest music by Chance the Rapper to learning about a new movie starring Dwayne Johnson or reading a related article from Bustle, tap ?See More? or swipe up to view the link right inside the app.
The addition of @ mentions works the same way it does for captions and comments on Instagram: Instagram Stories creators can add the @ sign and a username to the text in their Stories, and those usernames will appear underlined. When they are clicked, visitors will see those profiles in popup windows. Users who are mentioned in Instagram Stories will receive notifications. In cases where users are mentioned by other users they don?t follow, those notifications will appear in their message requests folders.

As for Boomerang, Instagram introduced the stand-alone application in October 2015, enabling users to combine a batch of photos into a high-quality mini video. The Facebo...