Instagram Stories passes 250 million users, launches Live Video Replays

Surprise surprise! Or quite frankly no, there are no surprises here. Mark Zuckerberg let the world know that Instagram Stories just crossed the 250 million users threshold within a year of its existence! And the company is celebrating with a new feature, Live Video Replays on Instagram.

So, Live Video Replays on Instagram allows users to share their Live broadcast in the form of an Instagram Story, to make sure their friends and followers that missed out on tuning into it real time, get a chance to view it within a 24 hour time frame. An option to Save your Live broadcast already exists and it can be seen on the right corner of the screen.

When you share Live Video Replays on your Instagram Story, your followers will see a ‘Play’ button at the bottom of your Story bubble and “Tap it to watch the video and see comments and likes from the original broadcast. You can also tap the right or left side of the screen to go forward or back 15 seconds, or tap “Send Message” to reply.” Instagram said in a blog post.

Earlier, Instagram Live Broadcasts would cease to exist upon conclusion of the broadcast, but Instagram gave a longer life to them by introducing a Save button. Instagram Live has been a success for Instagram as the company says, “Since introducing live video in November, millions of people have used it to connect with friends and followers in an authentic way.”

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Surpassing Snapchat’s numbers in April by registering 200 million users, Instagram Stories gathered 50 million more in a matter of two months, something that has been more than elusive for Snapchat. Their growth has been miniscule when put into contrast with Instagram’s numbers. The ephemeral platform has always focused on younger audiences and that has presented them with a limited scope of growth, in the United States and worldwide too.

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Facebook’s Global Head of Sales, Carolyn Everson told CNBC, “If you think about it a year ago when we sat together, Instagram Stories didn't exist. Today on the platform, we not only have 250 million people using it, but actually a third (of the most viewed stories) are businesses using Instagram Stories and one million are advertisers.”

Good news for Instagram has not been the same for Snapchat as their stocks fell by 3% following Instagram’s announcement.

Carolyn Everson was also quoted by CNBC with the following, "We think Stories is also another format that not only consumers but advertisers use. You are going to see Stories in a lot of different platforms."

These updates are a part of Instagram version 10.26 for iOS in the Apple App Store and for Android in Google Play.

What do you prefer between Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories? Let us know on team@socialsamosa.com or in the comments below.