This morning, like every morning, I was drinking my first espresso of the day and I opened up Instagram (don’t judge me, I guess I look for inspiring pictures to wake up with, before moving onto world news).

This morning, however, the news (the bad ones) had to wait. The big news was right there on Instagram, above the feed.

So Instagram made Stories!

This is how the latest addition to the photo app is called: Stories. To those of you who are regulars on Snapchat, this new Instagram feature will look quite familiar.

Stories allows you to share photos and videos throughout your day with your followers in a slideshow format that will disappear 24 hours after the first photo/video is added to your ‘story’.

A lot like Snapchat, right?

Yes indeed; but, to everyone’s surprise, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom didn’t deny the (great) similarities the two apps now share. On the contrary, he gave all the credit to Snapchat, adding “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.” Can you really disagree?

So, why Stories and what can you do with it?

We all know that Instagram is visually beautiful. Thanks to its numerous filters and editing features, even those with nonexistent talent can pull off a pleasantly decent Instagram account. And those who are lucky enough to be gifted with some real talent can actually be mistaken for professional photographers.

All this, however, didn’t seem good enough for Mr Systrom (who, by the way, sold the app to Facebook for $1 billion about a year ago). He and his team were concerned about the increasing popularity of Snapchat – especially among teenagers – which offered something that Instagram seemed to be losing more and more: the emphasis on real life.

So never mind who invented what, Instagram now gives you the chance to bring your 24 hours to life by sharing your ‘story’; (real) moments made up of 10 sec photos or videos that don’t need to respond to Vogue or National Geographic standards. And you can have fun by drawing with colours and neons, adding text and emojis (the latter doesn’t seem to be available to everyone yet). Your followers can’t comment (nice choice) but only send a direct message (again, this feature doesn’t seem to be available to everyone).

Now it’s time to give Stories a go, but keep an eye on our blog for our guide to using Stories.

– Alessia