Instagram now lets users initiate a request to join a friend's live stream

Roughly a month after Instagram started allowing users to **invite one of their viewers** to participate in an ongoing livestream, Instagram has added the ability for users to send a request to join a live stream. There are now two ways for two users to go live on Instagram together, and either party can initiate a request. The comments section in the livestream now has a dedicated request button for initiating a request to join a livestream. [caption id=“attachment_4222301” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image: Instagram[/caption] As soon as the request is sent, the user who initiated the livestream will see a popup that they can accept or deny. If accepted, the user who initiated the request gets a short window of time for preparing before the app slits the livestream into two. A new icon with two smileys now indicates the number of join requests in a badge, if there is more than one request. The button can be tapped to see the requests, accept them, or cancel them. The user who joined the livestream can leave at any time, and the user who initiated the livestream can also disconnect the other user at any time. This allows users to pop in for a quick hello, or spend more time on a live video. A person can accept the requests of multiple users, sequentially over the course of the same livestream. Once the live has concluded, users can discard the video or share it to Instagram Stories.