Instagram testing the new collaborative School Stories

According to a new report from TechCrunch, Instagram is testing collaborative School Stories, which can be viewed and contributed to only by students of that particular school or college.

Tipster Jane Manchun Wong spotted a code that suggests the new feature, and says, "School stories are manually reviewed to make sure the community is safe," which would be important if the popular photo-sharing app does go ahead with such a youth-exclusive space.

While there's no guarantee that Instagram will bring this feature to its app, it wouldn't be a surprise if the feature is been rolled out considering Instagram began allowing some US university students to add school affiliations.

Instagram is working on school story. pic.twitter.com/wJc5oSJtyM

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 5, 2018

Previously, the company was testing another feature that will share user location data with Facebook. The feature is still in testing phase and we are yet to hear an official announcement from the company regarding the rollout of the new feature on large scale. Instagram calls the new feature as "Facebook Location History" and will use it to track the GPS location of a user using Facebook's tools.

As of now, the new functionality has only been seen on iOS, while no Android version of the app seems to have it. Facebook has been long planning a deep integration of its Instagram and WhatsApp into its platform. This has also led to a dispute between Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp. Later both the founders of the popular messaging app left the firm, followed by Instagram co-founders, who also cut ties with Facebook for pretty much the same reasons.

Instagram has been continuously adding new features to its app. The company added the Shopping feature to Stories. Currently, the feature is available to businesses based in 46 countries. Instagram believes Shopping in Stories will allow brands to "tell an even deeper story about what's behind their products."