Facebook owned Instagram made a major announcement today that has got it more flack than appreciation. The photo-sharing site has launched a new feature which is quite similar to its rival, Snapchat’s one of the most famous feature.
In one what could be considered as the company’s desperately attempt to expand its user base, the company has introduced “stories,” a secondary feed of content that will last only for 24 hours from the time of posting.
Sounds familiar, right?
The new “stories” feature unveiled by WhatsApp is shockingly similar to Snapchat’s central feature also by the name “stories.” Introduced to the world in the year 2013, Snapchat’s stories feature has been able to escalate the company’s growth numbers substantially.
By launching the new feature, Instagram wants to encourage its users to post more candidly and frequently about the daily happenings of their lives. With this feature, the 300 million daily users platform could end up fundamentally changing the nature its entire app.
Rolled out today for both its iOS and Android apps, the feature will appear as circular avatars at the top of the Instagram feeds of the users. Each circular bubble avatar is an account that the user follows on the platform, and contains every video or photo shared by that particular account in the last 24 hours. The user just have to tap the bubble of the account whose story they wish to see.
In order to create one’s own Instagram story, one needs to tap on the “+” icon placed at the top left-hand corner of the app.
While Snapchat allows one to edit their stories by adding text, resizing it with their fingers and draw on them using a number of colours, Instagram’s stories feature also doesn’t disappoint. Instagram offers its users a total of 3 drawing tools to add to their stories posts: a really cool “neon pen” that draws in white but has neon color borders, a highlighter tool that allows the user to highlight important information by coloring beneath it, and a normal pen.
Whether or not, the users welcome Instagram’s stories in their lives the same way they have welcomed Snapchat stories, will be a thing to wait and watch.