Instagram rolled out a new feature Tuesday that it calls Stories, which lets users upload photos and videos that will disappear automatically after 24 hours. Instagram stories allows users to share all the moments of their day in slideshow format. However, Instagram Stories will appear at the top of your feed, meaning that your followers will see them easily, without you having to build an audience in another app. Instagram will display users’ Stories at the top of the feed where they will remain for 24 hours before disappearing forever.
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To view someone’s story, just tap on their profile photo.
Does that ring a bell? It seems unlikely that this would bring users who’ve flocked to Snapchat back to Instagram, but it might be good for preventing people from leaving to try Snap-style stories that appear less calculated than the average Instagram post.
“With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about overposting”, reads the blog post.
In an update coming to Instagram over the next few weeks, the Facebook subsidiary has made it pretty obvious how badly they wished they were snapchat. “They deserve all the credit”.
Comments to Zuckerberg’s post were also filled with thoughts about the new feature’s similarity to Snapchat. Copying or at least using other services as inspiration for new features is common among big tech companies. “This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it”, he told TechCrunch.
Snapchat introduced Stories this morning. Users can share as much content as they want to, and can be creative with it too.
The Verge called Instagram Stories a “near-perfect copy” of the central feed that helped supercharge Snapchat’s growth rate.
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One of the central features of Instagram’s stories are that they supply fine detail on who’s watching them by swiping up – and similarly precise controls for stopping certain people doing so. Once done, just tap to share this Story. Users tap on the profile photo to view the story and swipe to view another person’s story.
