Instagram has been adding new features at the rate of knots over the past twelve months. 

The most recent updates impact the direct messaging inbox, located in the top right-hand corner of the home screen. They are landscape/portrait orientations and the ability to share links. 

"Now, whenever you send a permanent photo or video to your friends in Direct from your camera roll, you don’t have to worry about cropping it", said the company in a blog post. 

The other new addition is the ability to send links within direct messages. It's now possible to share links with friends and preview them directly within a message thread. 

There is no sign of being able to post live links beneath a general post, for now. This continues to be a bugbear of many users. When a link is posted beneath an image it appears as plain text.