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Journalism of Courage
Instagram is now testing a new feature called ‘Channels’, which will club together different genres of videos in one place. And yes the similarities with YouTube’s Channels are hard to miss. Mashable reported the ‘Channels’ feature was spotted in the Explore section of the Instagram app running on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
When contacted Instagram told Mashable, they are always testing new features out on the app. Based on the pictures shared by Mashable, the Channels symbol looks exactly like the one on YouTube, and appears on the top right-hand corner of the Explore section. Tapping on Channels shows videos organised according to genres like Food Decoration, Pets, Make-up Tutorials, Comedians, Artists, etc, covering the variety of content that is shared on Instagram.
It’s not clear if this feature will be rolled out to all users and how soon, but it looks like Instagram is increasing the focus on video in order to boost engagement on the app. Stories, which was launched recently on the app, might be a true copy of Snapchat, but is already seeing major traction from brands and celebrities, according to a recent report by Wall Street Journal. Given Instagram’s 300 million DAUs compared to Snapchat’s 150 million, this is not surprising.
Stories on Instagram disappear after 24 hours, just like on Snapchat and are less polished, less chic content compared to the well-edited photos/videos that people usually post on Instagram. The idea with Stories is to ensure instant, live content. Instagram recently added a new ‘Zoom’ feature on Stories as well, which is again copied from Snapchat. However Instagram has limited editing options for Stories, unlike Snapchat which has filters, emoji, Bitmoji, and drawing tools to offer. Also on Instagram there is no option to save stories or to comment on them. On Snapchat users can reply to a Story shared by someone.
Also see: Instagram Stories get Zoom in support
Now it looks like Instagram wants to go after YouTube, with a new Channels section. Instagram has close to 500 million monthly active users, make it bigger than Twitter. Facebook-owned Instagram is one of the places where personal sharing continues to grow, and there’s no doubt the app plans to keep adding new features to stay relevant to users.
