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Posts tagged "Stories"

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Instagram is testing vertical Stories that work a lot like TikTok
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After confirming that vertical scrolling for Stories was in development back in 2021, Instagram is starting to test the feature in select countries.

Instagram Stories is the company’s take on tapping through short stories that can last up to ten seconds, both in a photo or a video. You can add in a GIF, tag someone, add filters, and more to update your followers on what you’re doing at that moment in time.

But when you decide to go to the next or previous story, you have to tap on the left or right in certain areas of the story in order to do these actions. This could be problematic as some tags placed in a story may overlap, so you may skip a story when you wanted to tap on the tagged person or place in question.

Navigating through your Stories by swiping will alleviate this, and while there’s a good chance that its similarity to TikTok will be mentioned, it’s a much better method for everyone, especially if you primarily use Stories on Instagram.

Analysis: This will matter to heavy Stories users

While recent updates, such as the ability to post from a web browser or switching to a dark mode theme have been well-received, vertical scrolling will mean a great deal more to other users.

The company has been rolling out features to better rival TikTok in video content, such as Reels and the ability to add web links to a Story.

However, since Instagram confirmed that vertical scrolling was under development, users had been waiting to see if it would be implemented. One year on, we get confirmation that it’s at least being tested in countries such as Turkey.

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As smartphones get bigger or, foldable, having to tap on the left side of the screen to go back to a story is going to be more frustrating for users.

Swiping up or down to navigate your Stories is a much more appealing method. It’s TikTok’s main way of browsing videos in its app, and it would be a welcome change to Instagram Stories.

With a chronological feed due out soon, swiping in a Story could be the next big feature for 2022.

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Instagram to allow videos of up to 60 seconds on Stories
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Instagram recently shared a social trends prediction report that provided insights on how the company perceives its target audience behaving in 2022. Possibly it was in this light that the Meta-owned video and photo sharing platform came up with some tweaks to the way users interacted with the app.  

Firstly it reverted to the chronological order of showcasing content and followed it up with a unique way of generating nostalgia among users. The latest in this series is an update that would allow users to upload videos of up to 60 seconds on their Stories. The current length happens to be just 15 seconds. 

A report in 9to5Mac quoted a post from an Instagram user Turkey to indicate that the social network app has indeed begun notifying select users about this change. At this point in time, videos going beyond 15 seconds gets automatically split into more than one post on Stories. Alternatively, the user could opt for uploading the video on to Reels and then showcasing a clip on Stories. 

What does it all mean?

“Discover longer stories. Videos up to 60 seconds will no longer be segmented,” says the message from Instagram in what appears to be a concerted effort on the part of Meta to regain users from other platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok. 

The change comes barely a couple of days after Instagram announced that users can now use the “Reels Visual Replies” feature to post responses on comments around their posts done via Reels. Users will see a new option that allows them to select the Reels button to create a video reply, which will appear as a sticker. 

Besides these changes, the report said Instagram was testing a revamped interface for posting Stories that simplifies the process of adding mentions or locations to a post. Of course, there is no information whether these changes would see the light of the day or when it would happen.

The company is also testing a revamped interface for posting Stories that will make it easier to mention other accounts or add a location to a post. It’s unclear when or if Instagram will make these changes available to all users around the world, as right now only a few users can post longer Stories.

Readers would be aware that TikTok has grown in popularity in recent times in spite of a ban in some countries with Snapchat coming up with a new standalone app for creators to edit and post videos. Thus, it is hardly surprising that Instagram is also in the fray to create innovative features that will keep its audience happy.

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