Instagram unveils Stories, for more meaningful sharing

Looking for a new way to experience Instagram and get something more out of it? If you are, then Instagram Stories is just the kind of update that you’ve been waiting for.

Instagram has always been the platform to give your friends and families updates of special occurrences and events in your life. So it makes sense that this new feature builds on that by letting all users tell their stories in the form of a slideshow.

According to Instagram, Stories is designed to help users share all of their day’s moments, not just the ones that stay on their profile. Multiple videos and images will begin appearing together now as part of a slideshow.

Users will be able to share as much as they see fit each day—and not have to worry about excessive posting. They can get as creative as they want with each update, using the new drawing and text tools that Instagram has also made available to them. To avoid social-media overload, Instagram will remove the images and videos after a 24-hour period, and they won’t continue to show up in the feed or your profile grid.

People can also see stories from those they follow, whether that’s friends and family or noteworthy accounts. By simply glancing at their feed and viewing the bar on top, they can see colorful rings around the profile pictures of those with new updates.

When something looks important enough to check out, you can simply tap on someone’s profile picture to see their story. See various stories at your own pace by tapping to go either forward or back and swiping to skip to the next profile and its story.

What’s really interesting about Stories is that users won’t be allowed to register or leave public likes or comments for them—unlike with ordinary posts. To leave a comment on a Story, just tap to send a private message to that individual on Instagram Direct.

A Story also follows the privacy settings of one’s account. Let’s look at how this works…

When your account is set to private, your Story is only going to be visible to your followers, but if it’s public, then anyone can see it. This doesn’t mean that your Story has to always be visible to your followers: You can hide your Story from anybody whom you don’t want seeing it, even if they follow you.

If you’re watching your own Story, you can swipe up on the screen to find out who has seen every image and video. You also have the option of just featuring a certain portion of your Story by posting it right to your profile.

Look for Stories to roll out on the entire platform in the next few weeks on both iOS and Android. Thanks to Stories, users can now share their highlights and most important events—and everything in between.

Marc Schenker

Marc’s a copywriter who covers design news for Web Designer Depot. Find out more about him at thegloriouscompanyltd.com.