Many people mourned the day that Facebook bought Instagram for a whopping 1 billion dollars (to be read in a Dr. Evil voice) a little over a year ago. They saw the sale as the beginning of the end for the independent app, and luckily their fears have been largely unfounded to date. True to his word, Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t changed much about the service in the intervening 12 or so months. That being said, the first signs of Facebook interference…um…influence are beginning to show. 
While the service has made some minor tweaks over the past year (new filters, and the much-needed ability to view the app on the web) most have been small. This week, though, Instagram rolled out their new “Add People” feature (its officially called Photos of You, but who’s counting…)  It’s pretty simple: once you choose a photo and a filter, you are taken to the comment screen. Under the comments section now lies an “Add People” box, where you can add Instagram users or your Facebook friends to your photo.

If this sounds an awful lot like Facebook’s tag feature….it should- it IS Facebook’s tag feature in the Instagram universe. It remains to be seen whether or not this new feature will be Timeline-gate all over again for Facebook, or if users will simply roll with the changes without much fuss. A cursory  examination of my Instagram feed shows exactly 0 (that’s right, none) of my friends have taken advantage of the new feature. Will you? Let us know what you think in the comments!