In ‘we can’t believe they didn’t do it sooner’ news, Instagram has announced ‘Instagram Stories‘, a feature which is a direct competitor to the Snapchat Story – a series of photos or videos that disappear after 24 hours. Sound familiar?
With the exception of a couple of design quirks, this is pretty much a direct clone of Snapchat’s feature: you take photos, you can draw on them and paste emojis, and they’re represented in the app by little circles.
New Instagram product VP Kevin Weil doesn’t seem to care much that this feels like.. well-trodden ground, to put it lightly. He compares it to the hashtag, which was invented on Twitter but eventually popped up on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
“When people first started using a hashtag outside of Twitter, it was a big deal,” Weil said. “It’s become universal as a result. I think ‘the story’ is a fantastic format for sharing in the moment and giving people a picture of your daily life, and I think a lot of apps are going to adopt it.”
It’s an interesting move from the company for sure. We know that Instagram is concerned that younger users are more likely to share ephemeral images in Snapchat rather than permanent ones in their own app, so the thinking here is that if they bring the whole operation under one roof, it’ll encourage both kinds of photo-sharing.
If there was ever a time to do it, it’s probably now. The Olympics are starting, and that’ll be a huge event to trial whether people are willing to close Snapchat and jump onto Insta for their quick image needs.
Source: Instagram.
Photo: Instagram.
