Instagram Location Stories in Explore, Stories Search could be next!

Here’s another week, another 'Inspiration' drawn by Instagram, another potentially successful reintroduction of a Snapchat feature to mainstream audience. Sigh. Instagram Location Stories are on their way to Explore, and could bring Stories Search with it. Also, Instagram has sweetened the update pot with an Archive feature.

A lot of activity inside the Instagram camp. Stories on Instagram enable users to add a location, and creates a curated feed of public Stories in one place, from one place and that is Instagram Location Stories for you. Coming to Explore to kill boredom and let you see one location from hundreds, or maybe thousands of different perspectives and lenses.

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Earlier, to find out what’s going on lets say, at a beach in Goa, you can search for the location’s page on Instagram where you can find all the public Stories that have tagged that exact location, or maybe tap on a tag in a friend’s story. This is not the case anymore, as you can conveniently find them under the Explore tab.

Moving on to discuss the possibility of Stories Search on Instagram, the probability is indeed high. The company only recently announced a hashtag feed for Stories to enable users to find similar content on Instagram.

Instagram Location Stories could even move further from hashtags and location to detect keywords and even objects, people or places, writes an optimistic Josh Constine for TechCrunch. “But eventually it could include Stories posts with the searched keyword written as a caption or drawing, or when the keyword is related to emoji or stickers in the post. And with the right technology in place, Instagram could detect objects, people or places in Stories to surface “Statue of Liberty” Stories shot at the landmark, even if they don’t mention it by name,” he says.

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This obviously opens up new revenue streams for the company as they can easily target location based advertisements through Instagram Location Stories. But one can’t help how Stories Search is ‘probably’ well on it’s way soon after Snapchat unveiled about two months ago. Snapchat only requires users to tap on ‘Our Story’ when uploading a Story, and only then a Story becomes publicly searchable.

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That sadly may not be an option for Instagram users, and nothing short of setting up their Instagram account as Private may prevent their Stories to be viewed by strangers.

Instagram Location Stories are curated the same way, Instagram curates permanent posts under the Explore tab, based on location, hashtags and behavioral patterns. The last one not being applicable with Stories.

Another bitter battle between Instagram and Snapchat may be on the cards.

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Another update from Instagram has been spotted by Matt Navarra and reported by TechCrunch is the Instagram Archive feature which lets users move a picture or video they do not wish to share with others, to the Instagram Archive. The post can easily be restored by the user if and when they wish to.

Pictures or videos that a user does not wish to share with anyone such as an old/embarrassing picture or video, or maybe a post that they personally like, but did not receive as much appreciation as they expected can be moved to the Instagram Archive whereupon it can exist in a safe space.

By tapping on the ‘three dots’ (…) above an image, you will see an option to add the image to Archive and the post will no longer be visible to anyone except for them. So let’s say you got carried away and posted an embarrassing picture from a party (under influence of course), and want to do away with it the next morning. Although you do look good in the picture and wish to mull whether or not to unleash it upon your followers. Archive to the rescue!