The next time you’re scrolling through Instagram and pause to drool at a picture someone took by precariously standing over a table covered in pizza plates (using their body to block the overhead lighting and create the perfect, shadow-free shot, naturally), you might be able to book a table at that restaurant without ever leaving your feed. The Facebook-owned app, Bloomberg reports, will soon let users book appointments directly via Instagram.
The feature will be rolling out to users over the next few months, Bloomberg also reports. James Quarles, Instagram’s head of business, said the move should give advertisers a better understanding of how effective their ads actually are, since those ads will now be able to translate more directly into business. “When someone books an appointment, that’s not a ‘like’ or a ‘follow,’ that’s actual action,” Quarles told Bloomberg. For those of us who aren’t advertisers, it translates to a few less clicks in the pursuit of a dinner reservation or a haircut.
If it gets popular enough, it’s possible the new appointments feature could make Instagram competitive with apps like OpenTable and Yelp. (Instagram also reportedly plans to introduce a reviews feature later down the road.) This certainly isn’t the first time Instagram (and more broadly, Facebook) has cribbed an idea from another platform. At least this time it wasn’t Snapchat.
