If you search the hashtag #InstagramStories on Twitter, you will be met immediately with the results of several memes of the logos of social media companies Snapchat and Instagram photo-shopped onto the faces of First Lady Michelle Obama and Melania Trump. Read about the insider to bring you up to speed on the joke and the reason why.
The reason for the joke is simple: Instagram rolled out a "new feature" called Stories, a feature normally associated with Snapchat, onto its platform. Needless to say, that the internet had a bunch to say!
To the uninitiated, the stories feature allows users to create and share ephemeral footage of their day to anyone who cares enough to follow you. In addition, the feature allows users to add notes to the images with colorful doodles, text and emojis. The feature also lets users see the amount of views and by whom they were viewed by. But guess what? Snapchat has the exact same feature and, even better, it was first introduced on its platform. Instagram unabashedly took a page from Snapchat's rhyme book(so to speak).
The Verge caught up with Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom, who praised the feature, saying Snapchat "deserved all the credit". He explains that "When you are an innovator, that’s awesome. Just like Instagram deserves all the credit for bringing filters to the forefront. This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it. He is basically saying that yes, he took it and there's is not much you or anyone can do about it. The game is in Snapchat's court but guess what; Instagram came to play. The competition for users is on!
A snapshot of Stories from Instagram
For years, competition has been the driving force behind several innovative companies. Its has been alive since the dawn of the internet age. I'll accompany you briefly down memory lane. AIM; an earlier form of online communication was an instant messenger platform which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. You weren't cool if you weren't on it with your friends after school in middle school. Then came Myspace; a social networking site that offered interactive user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, photos and videos. Along came Facebook, which is the social network that killed off Myspace and it's beloved top eight platform forever. Facebook realized an opportunity when Instagram came unto the scene so it purchased it for $1 billion dollars as a means of keeping it under control. Facebook saw the same opportunity or rather competition when Snapchat came around except the CEO and founder Evan Spiegel declined the three billion dollar purchase offer from Mark Zuckerburg. Snapchat is now boasting about 30 minutes of daily time spent from its users with 60% creating new content; whether it is in the form of messaging or new stories.
The future of social media i would say lies in the hands of both Snapchat and Instagram's ability to keep our attention. The competition is on and I am here for it.
