Instagram has started rolling out its Stories feature on the mobile version of its website. Instagram mobile web users will now see stories on top of their feed and users can watch a story by tapping on it. Like its mobile app, Instagram mobile web users get an option to skip or go back to a story by tapping right and left arrows.
The arrival of Instagram Stories on mobile web indicates Facebook's strategy to put its Snapchat clone everywhere on the internet. Facebook has added Stories to its own app, Instagram, Messenger and even WhatsApp. Instagram claims to have over 250 million users for its Stories feature and has easily pulled users away from Snapchat. While Facebook can tout Instagram Stories as a success, the Stories feature on its main app has not been well adopted and the company even started showing greyed-out icons of users to push adoption.
In a blog post, Instagram says that Stories on the web will be available to everyone in the coming weeks. At this point, Instagram will only allow users to view Stories on its mobile web version, but in the coming months, it plans to add support for posting stories as well. Instagram is also rolling out new face filters on its mobile app for enhancing Stories. The new weather-inspired face filters allow users to add effects like happy sun or a sad raincloud.
Facebook was spotted testing its own version of Stories for desktop last month. The update was seen as a way to further increase the adoption of its visual communication format and with today’s rollout of Stories on mobile web, Facebook seems prepared to push the feature on every viewable platform.