Instagram Stories more popular than the app it copied from

Over 200 million people now use Instagram Stories daily

No matter what you think about Facebook’s antics about shamelessly copying Snapchat features, it seems that the social media giant’s ‘evil’ plan is working.

Instagram Stories, which is a direct copy of a popular Snapchat feature, is seeing more success that what most people could have imagined when it was launched last year. “Over 200 million people now use Instagram Stories every day to keep up with friends and accounts they love,” Instagram said in a blog post on Thursday. It means that every day over 200 million people either post an Instagram story or view one from their friends’ or accounts they follow.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS1H0FDjgl5/?taken-by=instagram&hl=en

Achieving the 200m milestone means that Instagram’s Stories feature is more popular than all of Snapchat. As of the fourth quarter of 2016, Snapchat had around 158 million daily active users.



Besides boosting about expansion in its user base, Instagram also announced new features. Now users can turn selfies into stickers that you can pin onto future photos.



“When you take a photo or video and tap the smiley face, you’ll see a new sticker with a camera icon that lets you capture a mini-selfie. Before or after capturing, tap to apply different frame styles: fade or circle.”



Further, the company has also added geostickers for four new cities including Chicago, London, Madrid and Tokyo. “If you live in or are travelling to Chicago, London, Madrid or Tokyo, you’ll also start seeing geostickers for your city over the coming days. All of the geostickers have been designed by local community members to help bring the cities they call home to life,” the blog read.



The feature, which was launched last month, was initially only available for users in Jakarta and New York City