Facebook steals Snapchat “story” feature for Instagram

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To be a person in these times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the most social and well-documented society imaginable. Forget the promise of innovation and diversification, for in the grim dark future there is only Facebook. Yes, as part of their ambition to become the one and only social medium, the friendly giant has announced that their image sharing platform Instagram has gained a “Story” feature that looks suspiciously similar to Snapchat’s.

Stories on Instagram just launched earlier today. Essentially, they create a set of moments that will appear in a slideshow format, much like Snapchat stories, which can be viewed by your followers for up to 24 hours, much like Snapchat stories, and which then disappear without remaining on your permanent profile – all together now – much like Snapchat stories.

Instagram designers say that this is to assuage concerns that you may be overposting. Now you don’t have to worry about spamming your followers with ephemera; you can simply lump all of your Thai food and cat selfies into your story and keep trucking.

What’s more is that Instagram is giving you the ability to natively add text, stickers, and drawings to photos in your story. These features look very familiar for some reason, but we can’t put our finger on it. Oh right, it was Snapchat.

Stories are now available on the latest version of Instagram which you can snag by clicking the button below. Is this a natural addition for Instagram or something that feels tacked on? Give it a spin, then let us know what you think in the comments below.