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In a giant step forward for selfies, Facebook announced yesterday that that they have added a tagging option to Instagram photos. It will work pretty much the way photo tagging on Facebook works: @tag a friend in a photo, and he or she will receive a notification. Instagram is also adding a new feed called Photos of You to your profile. Tagged photos will appear there the same @mentions currently appear in your activity feed.
The downside is that unlike on Facebook, there doesn't appear to be an untag option in the case that someone posts an unflattering, squinty photo of me you for all the world to see. But Mashable reports that you can adjust your settings so tagged photos won't appear publicly in that section until you approve them.
Another mini-downside: Mashable confirmed with Facebook that @mentions from your Instagram archives will not be automatically converted into photo tags. "If you want to add tags to your old photos, you'll have to do it manually, one by one," they report.
But those two drawbacks aside, tagging has some interesting implications for fashion and fashion brands, as Facebook hopes people will also use the feature to tag what they're wearing. "For example, someone can now easily add the Burberry scarf they're wearing, making fashion discovery easier than ever," a rep told us via email.
Photos of You will go public on profiles on May 16. To get access, upgrade to version 3.5 of Instagram in Apple's App Store or on Google Play.
· Instagram Adds People-Tagging to Photos [Mashable]
· Instagram Can Now Use Your Selfie in Ads Without Asking [Racked]