Instagram copies Snapchat’s Stories, names it the same thing

In the world of social media, the me-too mentality thrives. Facebook was a complete copy of Friendster and now Instagram (which is also owned by Facebook) is taking a play from its mother company and outright copying the competition. Instagram is introducing a new feature called Stories. And yes, it shares the same name as the Snapchat feature it’s gotten its inspiration from.

For those unfamiliar with how Snapchat works, the users can upload photos and videos that stay up on the service for 24 hours for your followers to see. Basically, it shows your adventure or “story,” if you will. What Instagram is doing is almost exactly the same thing. You can share photos and video clips that are up to 10 seconds long and draw or add stickers to these photos and videos, too. And yes, after 24 hours they’re off Instagram as well.

These stories can be seen on top of your feed. You’ll see circles with photos of the people you follow who have shared stories for the day. It’s algorithm-based and will show your favorite accounts first. And if you have a public account, anyone who’s following you can see your stories. If your account is private, only those who you're friends with in the service can see those temporary posts.

Snapchat has always been a threat to Facebook and Instagram with how popular it has been. And perhaps blatantly copying might help them get the people back who haven’t been using Instagram as often as they have in the past. It's all about getting more users to be on their service and Instagram doesn't look like they're above simply copying the competition to do just that.

Source: Recode