Instagram launches Stories

If you have jumped onto the Instagram bandwagon and market your business via the mobile photo-sharing app, you may be interested to know that Instagram has launched a new feature called Stories, that allows users to upload photos and videos that will disappear automatically after 24 hours…

If you think this new feature sounds a lot like another photo-sharing app, then you’d be right. Instagram Stories is practically Snapchat for Instagram…   

Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom even admitted this in an interview, responding to a question asking if Snapchat pioneered the formatting and he responded “Totally. They deserve all the credit.”

Instagram officially revealed the new feature on their blog saying the new feature “lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story.”

“With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about over posting. Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed.”

These Stories will appear in a bar on the top of your feed. The feature is very much like Snapchat where you can’t like or comment on any of the photos or videos uploaded by the people you are following but you can send a private message to the poster.

This new feature will be available for all users on both Android and iOS within the next few weeks.

Will it catch on? Quite possibly but we will have to wait and see how the new feature compares to Snapchat when it is launched.