News

Instagram Has Started Rolling Out Comments For Stories

Mutuals will soon be able to publicly engage with Stories.

Published

2 years ago

September 4, 2024

Nour Nasir

Instagram

Instagram has begun rolling out comments for Stories, which until now, could only be replied to using direct messages. The upgrade offers a more visible method for users to interact with posts, with a representative from Meta adding that “comments live only on your Story”.

It will be possible to turn off Story comments for individual posts. However, when enabled, they will be seen by anyone following the account, but only mutuals have the ability to leave comments. As with the Story post format, comments will also disappear after 24 hours. Small profile pictures of commenters will appear at the bottom of a Story icon, so you’ll know if comments have been added before tapping to view a post.

Users can still opt to respond to a Story via DM if the account posting them has been set up to accept those messages. There will also be an option to send a DM in response to a Story comment, which can be found by swiping left on the text and tapping the DM icon.

Also Read: Top Free AI Chatbots Available In The Middle East

Instagram has also been adding more ways for users to jazz up their Stories, including customizable templates, AI-generated backgrounds and interactive stickers.

News

Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

9 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

Also Read: Shokz OpenFit Pro Review: Open-Ear Audio Finally Grows Up

For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.