A few months ago, I wrote a short essay on why I think Instagram should unbundle its direct messages feature. I have heard rumors that they are now thinking of actually doing that, so I am excited to see what happens on that front. Social messaging needs an update.
Stories are quickly becoming an integral part of the Instagram feed. What was once looked at as a “copycat” move by the Insta team, now, in my eyes, seems brilliant. All of my friends – from school and work – are using stories. Instagram is innovating on top of the stories Medium, adding fun and interactive publishing tools to the “stories suite.” Things like polls, new filters, etc. are enhancing the UX (and it seems like they are willing to move faster than Snapchat). Story highlights were a great idea, all my friends have them on their profiles. Their archive feature is great, too!
Here is a simple idea I had that I think would work well on Insta stories.
Insta should create a “birthday story.” It would be a slideshow that would populate every morning of the birthdays from who you are following. Cool, right? Also, an “anniversary” story would be really cool. (perhaps FB would be better suited to do that).
Like Snapchat, what if you could subscribe to certain stories aka magazines that would populate once a day. ESPN, Teen Vogue, etc.
I think the stories medium is just getting started, as there are so many directions for the product teams at Snap and Insta to take them.
One thing I really like that Snap is doing is collecting highlights of the best stories of the day. They have managed to create a “vine” effect, where people are recording funny/hilarious skits etc. just for Snapchat.
I am curious to see how Insta can replicate this.
(PS – Snapchat games are super interesting, I wonder how Insta will incorporate those into their story making).