Instagram introduces 'Stories', another obvious copy of Snapchat

Looks like we may soon lose the count of the number of times Facebook has tried emulating Snapchat. Yes, its obsession with owning Snapchat-like app has no end. This time around Facebook-owned Instagram has announced ‘Stories’ that lets you post content that disappears after 24 hours. Need we say more? One look at it and you will be instantly reminded of Snapchat , interestingly with a similar name (My Story), that in fact is believed to play a huge role in the company’s growth.  Instagram is rolling out Stories on Android and iOS. The feature will introduce a row of circular avatars at the top of your Instagram feed, and each of the circle shows an account the user follows. It has photos and videos put together in the form of a 10-second slideshow, which will eventually disappear within 24 hours. Your followers can simply tap in to view your stories, and Instagram will also let them fast-forward the slideshow. You will know who has viewed your story and can also look at anyone’s story whose profile is public without following them. However, you can easily hide your entire story from anyone you don’t want to see it, even if they follow you, the photo sharing site explains. Users can choose to feature a particular part of the story by posting it on their profile. “To create a post for your public story, you tap a new stylised “+” icon at the top left-hand corner of the screen. (Linking the feature to the main camera confused people about where an image would show up, the company says) Or you can reveal the story camera by simply swiping left. It’s a bizarro-world version of the Snapchat camera that lets you post text and resize it with your fingers, or draw in a variety of colors,” writes TheVerge.  The Instagram camera has three drawing tools including a normal pen, highlighter and also a neon pen. It has thrown in a few simple colour filters. With this move, Instagram is trying to break away from game of Likes, and looking to boost sharing. It would mean no Likes, Shares and simply put out stories that you don’t have to worry about it later as they disappear in a day. In March, Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel had revealed that Snapchat now gets over 8 billion views per day. In April, the company reported  10 billion daily video views. Facebook is also known to have doubled its video views late last year. There is no word on the exact current figures. However, Snapchat gets those views for its roughly over 100 million daily users who spend an average of 25 to 30 minutes on the app each day. On the other hand, Facebook has a whopping 1.2 billion active users, which is a large number compared to Snapchat. Instagram has over 500 million users. We’ve already seen Snapchat-like Slingshot  fall flat on its face, and in the years, Facebook has borrowed several features from Snapchat too.