Instagram seems to have run out of interesting features as it has started to copy what Snapchat has to offer. Recently, there have been reports of the app testing out Group Stories. Something that’s quite useful but not unheard of.
Now, in case you’re completely oblivious about the ongoings of social media, hear me out. The whole concept of “stories” was coined and introduced by Snapchat back in 2013. They consisted of photos or short videos that were uploaded to your profile and lasted 24 hours before being deleted.
Three years later we saw Instagram (and a couple of other apps) copy this very feature on their own apps and didn’t even bother to give them a different name. Over the years, we’ve seen stories evolve with various new features implemented in them. One of those was the introduction of Group Stories, which was basically a private story exclusive to only the members of a group chat.
It was really handy, considering you now had a platform to share media with your closest friend who happened to be in a group. Instagram must’ve thought the same when it decided to copy this feature and use it in its own app. This was discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, an app analyst who reverse engineers apps for fun. Upon testing Instagram, Wong discovered a test code for Group Story in the app.
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Instagram is testing Group Story pic.twitter.com/zNKaV19kYA
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 5, 2019
Unlike the Close Friends that was already present in this app, this feature is only meant for a select few friends who you want to share a private media with. It seems fitting for an app like Instagram to have this feature. What I found funny was that, prior to this, Facebook implemented and then event killed off this feature on its app.
Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, it probably wasn’t that difficult for them to transfer this feature across. Personally, I’m glad they went forth and did this as Instagram is more suited to something like this than Facebook. However, I do wish Instagram would innovate and come up with its own new features. The last time that happened, we got Boomerang Videos, which is one of the reasons many people use Instagram stories.
Like many features that are tested by app developers, there’s no knowing if it’ll actually make it to the app. Personally, I think that it should, as there are people who don’t use Snapchat and they’re missing out. While it isn’t exactly an original idea, it is a good decision.
