Instagram have just launched a new feature called ‘stories’ in a pretty brazen move trying to emulate one of Snapchat’s main functions. So, while Snapchat has recently added features that make it more like Instagram (i.e. Snapchat ‘Memories’), Instagram have done the opposite and added a feature that makes it more like Snapchat.
All of this echoes some of the developments that other tech and digital media companies have made over that last couple of years that move away from what made them unique in the first place. Today, everyone seems to be scrambling around video, live streaming and ‘stories’. The boundaries of these platforms are continuing to blur.
At the end of the day, whoever can leverage the most revenue from their users wins. Any platform can add any new feature that they want. Whether they were the ones to take it to market first or not doesn’t really matter. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.
FYI, while Snapchat is growing at a tremendous rate, Instagram still has DOUBLE the amount of daily active users (300m vs. 150m respectively).
Introducing Instagram Stories from Instagram on Vimeo.
