Introducing Instagram Stories

So… what’s the story?

This new feature gives you access to a range of editing tools to customise your story as you see fit, so you can show off the highlights of your day – but only for 24 hours. Unlike regular profile posts, there are no public likes or comments. Instead, you’ll get a private message from anyone who comments.

You can access Stories by tapping the plus icon on the home tab or simply swiping from left to right. You’ll see stories from the people you follow at the top of the home screen surrounded by colourful rings to stand out.

What can you do?

1. Capture your day with photos or videos

2. Edit your content with printed text and pens

3. Playback things you may have missed

4. Post sections of your story as a profile post.

Who can see your stories?

1. If your account is private, only your followers will see it.

2. You can hide stories from specific people.

3. Choose a feature of your story to post publicly to your profile.

However, despite the glitz and glamour, the majority of people are comparing the new feature to Snapchat, and rightly so.

Snapchat launched in the App store in 2011 and quickly gathered pace as just over a year later, users had shared 1 billion snaps.

To this date, Snapchat has around 100 million users and is known for being the app that shares highlights for a brief period of time.

So what are the similarities between the platforms?

1. Both allow clips up to 10 seconds in length that are removed after 24 hours

2. Both allow you watch your friends’ stories in sequence

3. Both allow you to reply to stories with direct messages

4. Both allow you to add custom text to your images and video

5. Both let you draw with markers

6. Both include the option to save the media directly to your camera roll

7. Both display who views your story.

So you can see why people are bemused at Instagram’s latest move, which has sparked hundreds of hilarious memes.

These similarities are enough for people to say that Instagram has blatantly copied Snapchat right down the foundations and it certainly doesn’t help that Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom near enough admitted that.

In a recent interview with Tech Crunch, Systrom said: “They [Snapchat] deserve all the credit” when questioned about the similarities.

However, he later went on to say: “This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

However, the general opinion is that Instagram stories will be more popular.

The main argument focuses on the fact that Instagram has more than double the number of users: 500 million. Not only is the potential reach for stories higher but you don’t have to start your following from scratch.

What do we think?

“They’ve copied Snapchat”: This is the main argument against the recent update. Some EDGE team members think the blatant look alike features are distasteful.

“It’s all in one platform”: The rest of the team are all for it, pointing out that you don’t need to leave the platform to get all the content you could want. You don’t need to learn a completely new interface or try to encourage your already existing followers to migrate over.

One thing’s for sure, we’re looking forward to seeing how this will all play out for Instagram and how Snapchat will be impacted from this point on.