It looks like Instagram is trying to come for Snapchat’s number one spot.
Rolling out its latest feature, the social media platform Instagram just added Stories as a new option for expression. Based off the short content-driven app Snapchat, Stories carries a lot of the same traits.
Offering short term content, videos and images posted to the Stories feature only last for 24-hour periods at a time. In other words, you don’t have to worry about committing to your posts, blowing up your feed, or messing up the aesthetic of your profile. Unlike Snapchat, Instagram offers neon writing, no filters, and you can watch stories from the home page or your profile page by clicking the avatar.
With confusion rising from users over the new update and accusations of the app being petty for “stealing” the feature from Snapchat, get ready to be bombarded by a bunch of, “Really, Instagram?” stories at first look. With photos still taking the lead on the app, think of the new feature as Snapchat in the cut. Even so, Instagram gives all the credit to Snapchat.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom commented on the Snapchat adaptation: “And I think what you see is that every company looks around and adopts the best of the best formats or state-of-the-art technology. Snapchat adopted face filters that existed elsewhere first, right? And slideshows existed in other places, too. Flipagram was doing it for a while. So I think that’s the interesting part of the Valley. You can’t just recreate another product. But you can say ‘what’s really awesome about a format? And does it apply to our network?'”
