Instagram gets Facebook-like tagging feature

Instagram gets even more like Facebook today as the photo sharing service has just added an official feature for tagging people in your pics.

The increasingly blurred lines between Instagram and Facebook has taken another step with the introduction of “adding people” to your snaps and, naturally, these photos will all be grouped together on your profile page in a “Photos of You” section.

Before today tagging people in Instagram posts worked in the @reply style of Twitter. You could mention people, but it wasn’t clear if  they were in the photo or that you were just pointing them to your update.

This latest update, however, works just the way it does on Facebook.

As with Facebook you’ll be able to monitor what photos you’re tagged in, as well as the sharing settings for your photos section.

It is a bit annoying though that all the @reply tags haven’t been brought across to the new photos section. That means, if you’re that way inclined, a huge tagging session is on the cards for you.

The functionality works more or less as you’d expect. You snap a photo, add your favourite filter, and then head over to the share screen where you will see the option to add people to the photo. And if you forget to add someone, you can always do it from the published post.

The update hits with Instagram version 3.5, which is working its way into the App Store and Google Play as I type.