• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 11, 2017

In the name of greater simplicity, Instagram is relaunching its Direct messaging service.

Most notably, the new Direct will present permanent and disappearing messages in one thread.

“Texts and reshares will now appear in the same thread with disappearing photos and videos, so you can seamlessly go back and forth with your friends,” the company notes in a new blog post.

By most measures, Direct appears to be performing well. Since its last update in late 2016, the number of people using the service has grown from 300 million to 375 million, per internal figures.

Instagram, however, is facing increasing competition from Snapchat and similarly playful messaging services.

Ahead of its big IPO, Snapchat joined the ranks of the Top 10 most popular apps in late 2016, according to comScore.

“Snapchat … went from being a very popular app among the younger demographics to being one of the most popular apps among the general population,” Adam Lella, senior analyst at comScore, recently toldMediaPost’s Moblog.

As of March, Instagram's global community exceeded 600 million users. At the end of 2016, Snapchat counted nearly 160 daily active users.