Since 2016, we’ve all been able to make mini movies about our lives and share them with friends, thanks to Instagram Stories.
Unfortunately, Instagram Stories encouraged oversharers to overshare on their oversharing, and what could have been one minute-long video of a boozy brunch becomes an onslaught of seconds-long stories you have to click through to determine whether or not your mate did get up to anything interesting that day.
Nope, turns out it was just a lot of avocado, poached egg and Prosecco. Thankfully, those dark days are now in the past, because Instagram recently announced that stories under 60 seconds won’t be broken up into segments.
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On Friday (23 September), the social network confirmed to TechCrunch that Instagram Stories can now stretch up to a minute in length, saying: “We are always working on ways to improve the Stories experience.
“Now, you’ll be able to play and create Stories continuously for up to 60 seconds, instead of being automatically cut into 15 second clips.”
The move is the latest example of Instagram’s efforts to prioritise video, having introduced 90 second Reels back in June.
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Late last year, Instagram head Adam Mosser said that the social media giant would be doubling down on video when laying out Instagram’s 2022 priorities.
However, Instagram users weren’t happy with one of the app’s changes in July, which allowed users to 'remix' their Reels, and even Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner criticised a new design the platform temporarily introduced over summer.
The famous siblings joined others in saying they wanted to ‘make Instagram Instagram again’ after the company started prioritising Reels as opposed to individual grid posts in users’ feeds.
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Both shared an image that said ‘Make Instagram Instagram again’ and in brackets added, ‘stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends’.
Mosser addressed the backlash (ironically, on Reels) and admitted that the platform had undergone ‘a lot of change all at once’.
"We're going to stay in a place where we try and put your friends' content at the top of feeds and in front of stories whenever possible," he said at the time.
"But we're also going to need to evolve because the world is changing quickly. And we're going to have to change along with it."
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Mosser also promised that Instagram would ‘lean into’ what people like and promised photos would stay on the app as ‘part of its heritage’.
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Topics: Technology, Social Media, Instagram
Aisha Nozari