Instagram Stories adds no-frills photo-only posting from mobile web

Snap Chat Dead? Instagram Stories adds no-frills photo-only posting from the mobile web, as Instagram really wants the developing world to start using Storytelling with Brand Development.

IG Users won’t be able to use Instagram’s augmented reality masks or share videos, but starting today (Nov. 16th, 2017) mobile web users can post to Instagram Stories. Previously, mobile web users could only view Stories, which have to be created in Instagram’s native apps. But now users can snap photos, overlay text captions, and share them with friends from mobile web, as well as Save posts they find in the feed and want to revisit later.

Releasing soon in stages, everyone in the next few weeks will see a camera icon in the top left corner they can tap to shoot or upload a photo of their Story. Captions in different colors can then be laid on top. But videos and the rest of Instagram’s creative tools like doodling, stickers, location tags, polls, and more are still just in the native apps. Instagram says it plans to keep improving the creative tool offering on mobile web but it has nothing more to share right now.

If Instagram can get its Stories institutionalized worldwide before Snapchat gets there, it could lock in a long-standing audience and be the end of the Ghost.

Featured Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch