Instagram Stories was perceived as a shameless move by Facebook to copy one of Snapchat’s most visible offerings and it became a hit. Facebook then decided to give Messenger the same treatment (which they later removed), Facebook got Facebook Stories and WhatsApp got WhatsApp Status Stories.
Recently, Facebook added the ability to port your Instagram Stories to Facebook and they can do this since they own the ecosystem. Now it seems they want to give the same treatment to WhatsApp, but from Instagram.
According to TechCrunch, Facebook is testing a way for letting users post their Instagram Stories as a WhatsApp Status Story.
“We are always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and make it easier to share any moment with the people who matter to you,” a spokesperson told the publication. This feature is being beta tested to a small number of users.
Apparently the feature is based on a code WhatsApp made it available to integrate third party apps with the messaging app. When you are using Instagram Stories, you will get an option to share to WhatsApp from the sharing screen, but funny enough, you still have to press send in WhatsApp to post it.
Instagram Stories is really popular, 300 million people use it daily. This move could spur the use of WhatsApp Status, which stands at 250 million. Relative to the size of WhatsApp’s audience, this is way smaller than Instagram and it has more potential to reach more people