Instagram announced Stories on August this year only for people to quickly compare it with the Snapchat Stories product which was clearly modelled from. It has become quite a popular feature of Instagram which is seeking to move away from its core product of letting people share filtered photos and now they have unleashed an update on Stories that takes it to the next level.
The new feature is called Suggested Stories and they are not new as they were reported towards the end of August as a test. Well it is official now and you can see them when you update your app.
If you want to see these suggested stories, you only need to tap on the Explore button and they will be populated on top of the feed just like the regular Stories from people that you follow. According to Instagram, these are populated from your interests (thanks to Instagram’s new algorithimically powered timeline.) When you swipe down to refresh your Explore feed, the list of suggested stories will also change where you’ll get to see a new list of stories to watch.
This could be beneficial in a way that your Stories can be viewed by a larger audience than your current following count but also could bring out the issue of privacy for people who like their stories to be private. Fortunately, from the beginning, Instagram had made the provision to change your privacy settings right from the options menu where you can set your story to be not seen by specific people and to control who can send you a message right from the Stories.