When Instagram introduced Stories, I was skeptical. Not only did it not fit the aesthetic of the platform, there was no question it completely copied Snapchat. After a few days, I got over it and embraced Stories as another member of the social media family. I thought this was the end of Instagram’s copycat days, but it seems like they were just getting started.

As of today, Instagram has introduced a series of selfie filters to their Stories feature. Sound familiar? That’s because this is the same big feature Snapchat announced months ago. Our friends at TechCrunch were able to receive a hands-on demo for the features and reported that though the filters were much easier to use, they have a more difficult time keeping track of facial movements compared to Snapchat.

One original feature Instagram Stories added with this update is the option to add a hashtag sticker to your photo or video. When viewers click on the sticker, they are directed to the hashtag page that shows permanent, public content using the same hashtag. If this feature becomes popular, it could lead to the ability to find public stories by searching hashtags. It isn’t a far-fetched idea. It has been reported that Instagram has recently been testing Location Stories. That means finding public stories based off the location of the user. With all of the possible ways Stories could go, Instagram is on the brink of becoming the world’s one-stop-shop for all visual communications.

Augmented Reality (AR) is slowly growing more popular amongst social media platforms. With all of the successful components of Snapchat currently being cloned, we have faith that Instagram will come up with some ground breaking ideas here pretty soon..

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