Instagram does photos on mobile better than anyone else. They also recently added video to that mix, but it doesn’t look like Instagram is going to stop there: rumor has it they are getting into messaging next as well.

Over at GigaOm, Om Malik says that “well-placed sourced” claim that new private messaging features will come to Instagram by the end of the year, and may include group messaging.

Why does Instagram need messaging, though? Malik explains:

It is fundamentally my belief that most applications need a layer of communication — comments and lightweight signals such as Facebook’s likes are part of that layer. And so is messaging. The web (and Internet in general) is getting closer to being synchronous, and alive, a concept I had described in my essay, The Alive Web.

I’m not sure I agree: although I suppose it’s good to have a way of getting in touch with Instagram followers you don’t know from other networks, this seems like standard feature creep.What do you think? Would you use Instagram messaging? Let us know in the comments.

Source: GigaOM