United States Instagram users now have a new channel within the app dedicated to live concerts, sports and other events where users will share videos from the venues and users can watch from anywhere.
“This new channel is personalized for you and highlights events you might like,” Instagram said in a blog post Wednesday. The Events channel will appear in the Explore section of Instagram, which has other channels dedicated to videos grouped by topics and interests, such as fitness and food.
Instagram’s Live feature is similar to Snapchat’s offering Live Stories which is a compliation of Snaps from different Snapchatters at events and locations around the world. Live Stories are curated by Snapchat, and typically appear for 24 hours.
This is the second time in the past few weeks that Instagram launched a feature similar to Snapchat. Last month, Instagram released Stories which Snapchat offers under the same name. Stories gives users the ability to collate photos and videos into a ‘story’ which will disappear after 24 hours and are easy to share and hide from whoever they.
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom admitted that Snapchat deserves all the credit for Instagram’s feature. “No one looks down at someone for adopting something that is so obviously great for presenting a certain type of information. And I think what you see is that every company looks around and adopts the best of the best formats or state-of-the-art technology.”
In June, Instagram announced its community has grown to more than 500 million Instagrammers — with more than 300 million of whom using the platform every day. According to Bloomberg report there are 150 million people using Snapchat every day. If Instagram is able to steal Snapchat’s thunder by offering similar features it means less users will leave the app for a competitor.
