Instagram introduced new feature called ‘Instagram Stories’

Good news for the Insta lovers. Instagram has unveiled its new feature called ‘Stories’. This feature will let users share multiple photos and videos as a story.

Instagram Stories contains the same format as the Snapchat stories. Facebook owned photo sharing app has literally cloned the Snapchat stories feature with some improvements and tweaks. Facebook has tried to copy Snapchat multiple times with standalone apps like Poke, Slingshot and Instagram Bolt. But, they failed to attract users to download a standalone app that does same as the Snapchat. So this time, the company has embraced the feature in their successful product Instagram. ‘Instagram Stories’ looks impressive at the first glance.

We can say Instagram Stories a Snapchat story version for the adults. It is very easy to utilize and highly inspired from the Snapchat story. Even Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom agreed on that. He surprisingly admitted recently, “They (Snapchat) deserve all the credit,” but insisted “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

Just like Snapchat, users will be able to add text, emojis, filters and drawing in the story. Whenever someone you follow will share the story, you will see the stories in the row on the top of the feed. You will see person’s profile photo on the top of the feed and clicking on the photo will show you the story he has shared. Every story on the Instagram lasts for the 24-hours. It will be automatically discarded after 24 hours. The maximum time limit for every story is 10-seconds.

You can shoot the story in the full screen or upload the things from last 24 hours of your camera roll. It also lets you reply to a specific story by swiping through it. Your reply will be delivered as the Instagram Direct Message to that user. Users can also save the individual slides from the story. Instagram stories also lets you see who viewed your story.

The reason why some of the users avoid using Snapchat is its confusing user interface. Instagram has taken this mess out of the account by offering very easy and thoughtful user experience while creating stories. While everyone believes that Instagram has copied the Snapchat story feature, they have made it slightly better by making small but effective tweaks. Let’s see, what Instagram Stories has new to offer that Snapchat doesn’t?

Unlike Snapchat’s separate screen, Instagram stories appear on the top of the feed and shorted based on your interaction with users. That makes the latest stories easily accessible. You can select who can see your stories and who can respond to the stories. It also lets you block certain users for specific stories. You don’t need to follow someone to see his or her stories. If the user has set the story public, you can see that. You can fast forward or pause the slide show by holding the screen while viewing the story.

Instagram stories have three different types of drawing brush. You can use standard, translucent highlighter and color-outlined neon to add flavor to your story. Unlike Snapchat, Instagram stories don’t have puppy face or rainbow barf filters. But there are seven other default filters available now. You can use those filters to add effects to your photo/video. If you want people to see your story permanently, Instagram stories lets you share that story as a post on your feed. That story will be displayed publically on your profile then. The restrictions you have applied to the story won’t be applicable in the feed post. So, user-friendly interface and ability to control that who can see your story makes the Instagram stories more popular among the users.

There are more than 500 million Instagram users across the world. More than 300 million of them are daily active users. Instagram story feature will be available to all iOS and Android users as an app update in few days. You can read more about the Instagram stories on the official blog post.