Instagram is continuing its assault on Snapchat (which is working) by opening up its Stories clone to any photos and videos in your photo library. Stories were originally limited to shots and footage captured in the app, then later updated to include photos and video captured within the last 24 hours.
Removing the 24 hour restriction from Instagram Stories should encourage more users to share photos and videos with the feature, and Instagram is adding a new date sticker to Stories with images and videos captured over a day ago. The date sticker is optional but helps preserve the in-the-moment nature of Stories.
This change means you can take a weekend hike on Saturday morning, take Sunday to recover, and still share to your Instagram Story on Monday. Unlike Instagram feed posts, Stories are still ephemeral too. Photos and videos shared to Stories are viewable by your followers for 24 hours before they expire.
Instagram’s change to Stories comes just one day after Snapchat warned investors that it’s working on overhauling its own app to broaden its appeal to more users by increasing usability. Snapchat has notoriously designed new features that are undiscoverable and often completely hidden.
Instagram on the other hand has heavily borrowed feature concepts from Snapchat without stealing the obscure design. As a result, Instagram is seeing nearly double the number of users on Stories than Snapchat after taking the format right down to the name.
Instagram is a free download from the App Store.
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