Instagram has cloned Snapchat's Stories feature, and it's not done yet. On August 17th, 2016, the photo-sharing service introduces another update to include something that Snapchat users will find very familiar.
"Starting today, you can experience events as they happen around the world with a new video channel on Explore," announced Instagram on its blog post.
The feature is called Event Channels. Residing in Instagram's Explore tab, it features videos from users that are focusing on concerts, sporting events and others. Similar to the rest of Explore, the new channel can be personalized for individual users.
"Like the rest of Explore," Instagram notes, "this new channel is personalized for you and highlights events you might like." The newly-added channel will aggregate the best videos of live events around the world, so users can watch them wherever they are.
And to make you "feel like you're in the front row," the channel curates in a mix of videos based on what you've been liking and who you've been following, only this time the content comes from fellow Instagram users who are fans or attendees at an event and not a celebrity's social media or PR team. The curated videos therefore offer variety.
Previously, Instagram already offers curated video suggestion based on categories. What the Event Channels do, is an extension of that. So when users click on an event in the Explore tab, they can like, comment and share, as well as to scroll through all of the videos that are specific to that event.
Changing + Evolving = More Engagement
Over the past few year, Instagram has been working to make its Explore tab more interesting. As a place for showing personalized contents, it's probably one of the most popular feature on Instagram.
About how the way it works, Explore started as a simple algorithm to determine photos that a user may like. But as it matures, Explore has evolved into something that is fully-fledged, transforming itself to become a discovery platform for photos and videos.
The Event is an extension to Explore, meant to increase user engagement. And just like any other explore channels, contents inside the Events Channel are sourced from users.
Because users can customize it, the Events Channels seen to be another way for Instagram to compete with Snapchat's discover channel which features curated user-generated videos from major events around the world. Instagram's advantage over Snapchat is its algorithm. Snapchat's discover channels are still curated by hand, and this limits how personalized the channels can be.
Its parent company Facebook has introduced live-streaming feature, and that has proven well for the social giant. Instagram's Events is sort of like that, but delivered in an Instagram way.
The videos won't be the best in quality, nor will be the sound. But if Instagram's strategy is to give users the feelings for being at events, the Events Channel could be its best way of delivering them.
Any real-life event can also become an event inside Discover as long as it's popular enough among users and there is enough content to create a channel.
At the moment of its introduction, the Event Channels aren't as sophisticated and robust and Snapchat's Live feature. Instagram is rolling out the features in the U.S., with a global availability in moments to come.
Further reading: Facebook, Instagram Vs. Snapchat: Copying To Eliminate The Threats