Instagram introduced their Live Stories feature to compete with Snapchat's stories, and for the most part, they've done pretty well. It absolutely feels like a clone of one of Snapchat's selling points, but for someone that's a little more invested in their Instagram account, it was a worthwhile addition.
We're going one step further today with the introduction of disappearing pictures and videos that you can send to your friends with Instagram Direct. If that sounds like another feature from Snapchat, well, that's because it is. You send content to your friend that disappears after a few seconds, and you'll get a notification if they replay it or take a screenshot of it. Good artists copy, great artists steal.
The other new feature in this round of updates is called Live Videos, which, uh, works exactly like going live with your video stream on Facebook. You can record yourself for up to an hour and your friends will be notified that you're live so they can tune in and comment while you're broadcasting.
We'll give Instagram a break here, since they're owned by Facebook. But it's hard not to notice that Facebook is using Instagram as a side platform to appeal to younger and more privacy oriented users, as opposed to Facebook's own platform that offers every feature under the sun. It's not a terrible strategy, since Facebook is still ubiquitous with social media and Instagram gives them a younger base to tap for future users.
source: Instagram
