Instagram Builds Its Own Version of Snapchat Live Stories

Instagram is taking cues from Snapchat and Twitter with its latest update — curated content streams for specific events, in this case, Halloween.

If you open the Instagram app in the U.S. on Saturday, you’ll see a new prompt at the top of the feed to “Watch Halloween’s Best Videos.” Clicking on the prompt takes you to a new video-only content feed curated by Instagram employees. The video feed is, as Instagram describes it, “immersive.” This means that videos stand alone on your phone’s screen without the usual border, text description and Like count that normally joins an Instagram post.

The general idea is to take some of the popular Instagram content around a particular event and make it easier to find.

“This is a new way to experience events and big moments, as they happen, through the eyes of the Instagram community,” a spokesperson told Re/code in an email, adding that this is “just the start” for these kinds of curations.

Instagram

Instagram isn’t alone in this effort. Snapchat was the first to the party with its Live Stories feature, a human-curated collection of Snapchat content from offline events like concerts and sports games. Twitter, then, released Moments earlier this month, a similar product that compiles tweets around specific events into one, curated story.

All of these networks are dealing with the same issue. People like to talk and share what they are doing offline on each respective platform, but it can be tough to organize it all. By bringing popular content together around specific offline events, it also gives these companies a new revenue opportunity in the form of brand sponsorships and other event-specific advertising.

This transition shouldn’t be a total surprise to people following Instagram. The company revamped its search feature back in June to better collect content around specific topics. This is just a more real-time, human-curated version of that.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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