If Snapchat is still just a little too confusing for you, Instagram might have a solution. The Facebook-owned company has revealed a new feature that resembles one of Snapchat’s most popular attributes: disappearing photos and video.
Instagram Stories could help you find a happy medium between over-sharing and under-sharing. As the feature rolls out globally via Android and iOS during the coming weeks, Instagram’s 500 million monthly active users will gain access to a daily feed of photos and video that resets after 24 hours. The photos and video added to the Instagram Stories feed will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear in the main Instagram feed or in the grids on users’ profiles, according to the company.
Instagram Stories will appear in a bar along the top of the app, that highlights people with recent Stories. When you add multiple photos or videos to those Stories within 24 hours, Instagram will automatically fuse them together as a slideshow.
Facebook has tried to copy Snapchat many times, with failed apps such as Poke and Slingshot. And it has regularly updated Instagram with new features and functionality. However, Instagram Stories marks the most radical change to the app in nearly three years.
The copying and borrowing between Instagram and Snapchat has been particularly active this summer. Snapchat made a move on Instagram’s turf less than a month ago, when it released Memories and gave users a tool to preserve and curate the content they share for future viewing. Today, just 27 days later, Instagram followed up with a snap of its own.
Instagram has traditionally gravitated to a glossy aesthetic with high-quality photography and video. The company’s Cofounder and CEO Kevin Systrom has repeatedly called out this aesthetic as a defining characteristic that differentiates it from other photo, video and messaging apps. “If you want to take a simple photo that you don’t really want to remember and post it to have your friends not see it after, there are great networks for that,” Systrom told The Hollywood Reporter just last month.
IDG News Service
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