Photo and video sharing site Instagram has recently launched a new feature to its platform – Instagram Stories.
Those who are familiar with their social media tools will recognise this feature from a rival company. Snapchat introduced its version of Stories back towards the end of 2013; a feature that allows its users to post pictures to a storyboard for up to 24 hours before they vanish.
Now, Instagram is launching its own version of the popular feature. Users will now be able to create a story that will share a number of images and videos for a period of 24 hours, allowing the user to add filters and overlaying the images with text, emojis and other graphics so that their followers can watch. Users can subscribe to the stories of their friends and other people of interest, such as celebrities, with stories disappearing at the end of the 24-hour period.
The new feature was announced in a blog post that encourages users to share their highlights, as the platform has always been somewhere to share the moments a user wants to remember.
Instagram is owned by social media giant Facebook, which purchased the site in 2012 for $1bn (£630 million). Facebook has not been secretive about its desires to emulate the success of Snapchat, so it may come as no surprise that one of its sites has released a feature to rival it.
Since the acquisition, Instagram has gone from strength to strength, with over 95 million photos and videos being shared on the site each day. As well as this, it has recently hit the 500 million user milestone, giving it a greater growth rate than parent Facebook and microblogging site Twitter.
This update is the latest in a number of big changes for the company in recent times. In May, the company changed its iconic logo to something more modern and vibrant, adding much more colour to the company camera symbol and changing its outline to something more modern and simplistic.
As well as changing the logo, it has changed its background colour from blue to white – a move the company says will enhance the content uploaded by its users.
Instagram Stories is currently available for users to use on both Android and iOS versions of the platform. To access it, users just need to update their mobile apps. The feature has been rolled out worldwide, meaning every user has access to it.
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