Off late, many social networking sites including Facebook, Periscope from Twitter, and Snapchat have started working towards allowing their users to watch or stream live videos from the smartphone devices.
Facebook had started to globally roll out its live video feature sometime earlier this year. And now, Instagram is the new to join the bandwagon of streaming live videos. Though it is still incomplete and in a non-working state, the idea itself shows that the parent company of Instagram, Facebook has been trying its best to push this service to all its other apps in full capacity, right from the time it started this feature on its social networking site. So it does not come as a huge surprise when the parent company has started working on bringing this feature to Instagram, the popular photo and video sharing platform.
What’s New
According to a report by T Journal, a Russian news website, Instagram will be testing its live video streaming feature in its ‘Stories’ column. There were a set of images that were released with screenshots of the Instagram Stories interface. A banner with a red tag that reads ‘LIVE’ will appear at the top of the page when the users are using the live video feature at a time. To start broadcasting the live video, the users will just have to click on a red button which will lead them to a separate area on the page called the ‘popular live broadcasts’. There is another new button called ‘Go Insta’ that is present on the camera screen of the app which probably indicates a new feature of the app to create videos in relation to live video streaming. There is another button called ‘Schedule’, just like its parent company, which will appear at the right corner of the page at the top.
Instagram Stories
Instagram had launched the ‘Stories’ feature in August 2016, that allows the users to create a short video which compiles multiple photos and small video clips so that it can be shared with friends and family. This short video story will disappear after 24 hours of sharing it. This feature was launched to compete with the Story feature of Snapchat which is Instagram’s arch rival. The users can slide their finger from left to right of the screen to open the camera. They can then click pictures or videos and upload as a story on Instagram Stories. The users will have to tap on a plus icon which is present at the left corner on the top of the screen to upload a story. After a photo or video is selected for uploading, the app provides the user with a set of editing tools which will allow writing or doodling on the image or video.
Stories to Explore Tab
Just last week, Instagram had updated its app by bringing the Stories to the Explore tab with a simple agenda to increase its reach to more users around the world. The company claimed in a blog post that more than 100 million people discover photos and videos from other people whom they do not follow yet by visiting the Explore tab. This integration of Stories with the Explore tab highlights all the interesting Stories across the vast global community of Instagram.
Instagram is trying to increase its empire by not just improving its platform in the photo and video sharing arena, but also by focusing on stepping up its game by adding other features like Stories. Though there has not been any official report from Instagram, it makes a lot of sense that the live video streaming feature should be released in a matter of time since it is already a hit feature on Facebook which is Instagram’s parent company. However, there is no clear idea about how the live video streaming feature will work on Instagram and there is no idea if it will even become a full-fledged feature. The feature is still in its beta testing stage and will be available only for a few users of the Android version of the Instagram app in Russia. An official announcement is yet to be made by Instagram about its trial program for the United States.