Instagram Launches its CopyCat BeReal Feature ‘Candid Stories’

Instagram Beats TikTok as most downloaded app

Instagram has officially launched “Candid Stories” — a new dual camera feature that copies the photo-sharing app BeReal.

In a blog post today, Instagram announced Candid Stories which will prompt users once a day to share a photo using their front and back cameras simultaneously.

Like BeReal, users will only be able to see their friends’ “Candids” once they have uploaded their own Candid to the app.

“We’re starting to test Candid, a new way for you and your friends to capture and share what you’re doing right now in a story that’s only visible to those who also share their own,” Instagram writes.

“Capture a candid from the stories camera, the multi-author story at the top of [the] feed, or from the daily notification reminder that starts after your first candid.”

If a user does not want to receive a daily Candid Stories reminder on Instagram, they will need to turn off these notifications in the app settings.

Instagram also says it is testing a similar Candid Stories feature on Facebook stories.

Taking On Twitter

As well as recreating BeReal’s dual camera, Instagram also tried to compete with Twitter with its latest app update.

Instagram launched its new “Notes” feature today, which allows Instagram users to add a short post of 60 characters using just text and emojis to their profile.

To leave a note, users must go to the top of their inbox, select the followers they follow back or people on their Close Friends list, and their note will appear at the top of their inbox for 24 hours.

Replies to notes will arrive as DMs in a user’s inbox.

Last week, PetaPixel reported that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had sensed an opportunity to overtake Twitter following Elon Musk’s controversial acquisition of the platform.

According to posts of the conversations between Meta employees that were read by The New York Times, the company was considering extensively rolling out the micro-blogging “Notes” feature on the Instagram app to replace Twitter.

Instagram is also introducing several other features aimed at getting users to interact in smaller groups.

“Group Profiles” will enable groups of friends to create shared profiles with multiple contributors. Meanwhile “collaborative collections” is being tested so that multiple people can share posts to the same space in the app.


Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.

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