Facebook Stories can now be posted straight to Instagram – as apps prepare to ‘merge’ messages
FACEBOOK and Instagram appear to be merging even closer as the social media giant trials cross-posting Facebook Stories to the photo sharing platform.
Instagram fans will already know that you can post Stories from the app to Facebook but you can't do that in reverse.
If the cross-posting feature is fully launched then it could actually improve the user experience.
This is because many people complain of seeing the same Stories they've just seen on Instagram on Facebook.
If the apps work together then there will hopefully be a way for software to detect which users have already seen certain Stories.
The move will probably come as more disappointing news for people who weren't happy about Facebook pasting an "Instagram - From Facebook" title over the app.
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 but the two social media platforms remained pretty separate until recent years.
Instagram's co-founders ended up leaving the company in 2018 when they felt like they had less of a say in what was happening.
We have reached out to Facebook for comment on where the app is being tested.
Reverse engineering expert spotted the Facebook-to-Instagram sharing feature within the code for the Android Facebook app.
She then posted a screenshot of it to Twitter, which clearly shows the "Share Story to Instagram" feature.
Last year, Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status all had 500 million daily users.
Facebook is said to have plans to eventually merge all three of these apps and create one super app.
Instagram – the key facts
Here's what you need to know...
- Instagram is a social network for sharing photos and videos
- It was created back in October 2010 as an iPhone-exclusive app
- A separate version for Android devices was released 18 months later
- The app rose to popularity thanks to its filters system, which lets you quickly edit your photos with cool effects
- When it first launched, users could only post square 1:1 ratio images, but that rule was changed in 2015
- In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1billion in cash and stock
- In 2018, some analysts believe the app is worth closer to $100billion
- In October 2015, Instagram confirmed that more than 40billion photos had been uploaded to the app
- And in 2018, Instagram revealed that more than a billion people were using the app every month
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How often do you use Stories? Let us know in the comments...
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