Introducing Instagram Stories, and it’s Snapchat-ish

Instagram has launched Instagram Stories, a feature that lets users share their preferred photos of the day as a slideshow.

Users can share as many stories as they want, and even be able to add text or use the drawing tools the new feature provides, but the stories disappear after 24 hours. Stories from other users will be seen in the top bar within the app from accounts a user follows. There is no like or comment option for Instagram Stories but users can Instagram Direct message a user whose story they like to comment on it.

Who can see a user’s story?  Instagram says:

Your story follows the privacy settings of your account. If you set your account to private, your story is visible only to your followers. However, you can also easily hide your entire story from anyone you don’t want to see it, even if they follow you. When watching your own story, swipe up to check out who’s seen each photo and video. You can even choose to feature a particular part of your story by posting it on your profile.

All the text editing tools and disappearing act REALLY seem like how Snapchat operates so is this competition? Snapchat has been gaining momentum in the social media world of late when it comes to short video and images-with-text sharing, a lot of which end up being shared on Instagram. I figure this way people won’t have to treat Instagram as a 3rd party app , but we’re yet to see how Instagram Stories works as it will only roll out to iOS and Android over the coming weeks. To see Instagram’s video showing how Stories works, click here.