Instagram live video streaming might be on its way

Instagram appears to be testing a new live streaming video feature in the beta version of its app. According to a Russian news site, which has images and video of the feature running on a Nexus 6P, a new “live” section in Stories will feature “popular live broadcasts”.

Considering the success of Facebook live video on that platform, it was only ever a matter of time before it was introduced to Instagram’s photo sharing community. Although Instagram has received flak for blatantly ripping off Snapchat’s stories idea, live streaming video certainly feels at home on Instagram.

In the beta app, Stories icons now appear at the top of the Explore tab as well as on the home screen. The first Stories icon in Explore features a “live” tag and takes you to a page labelled “popular live broadcasts” (which is obviously not yet functional).

Meanwhile, a new “Go insta” button appears in the camera app which starts recording live video, along with a “Schedule” button in the top right corner (you may recall Facebook also recently introduced a scheduling option for its video streaming).

I tried getting this working on a Nexus 6P running a developer preview of Android 7.1 and a OnePlus 3 running Marshmallow but had no luck. If you manage to get it working, let us know in the comments.

Would you use Instagram live streaming?