Well, Instagram has announced a feature that (obviously) was inspired by Snapchat’s Stories and they went ahead to shamelessly call it Stories.
The company describes Stories as a “new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile.” Basically what Instagram is aiming here is letting you share multiple photos and videos on your Instagram page and they will appear as a montage/slideshow as a story. Just like Snapchat.
Also just like Snapchat, these Instagram Stories will disappear after 24 hours and you will be able to edit these stories further by adding text captions or drawing stuff on them. You will be able to see stories from the people you follow in a bar at the top of your feed or if you want to view someone’s story, you only need to tap on their profile photo. If the person adds a new story on their profile there will be a colourful ring around it.
Basic gestures are used in viewing this stories. You only need to swipe to jump into another person’s story and tap to go back and forward. Also just like Snapchat, when you want to comment on something you saw on a person’s Instagram Story, you only need to tap and send a private message on Instagram Direct.
Instagram also gave information about how to control the audience of your Stories where you can set them to be only seen by your followers or only by you which is great. Interestingly, when you view your own story, you only need to swipe up to see who saw each photo or video in your story and you can go ahead and post it on your profile.
Well, this feature will be rolled out globally to iOS and Android in the next few weeks according to the company and it ushers the Snapchat-irization of Instagram (if there is such a word).
https://vimeo.com/instagram/stories
