Instagram adds Stories to search and explore tab

Above: Instagram Stories shown in the app’s explore tab.

Image Credit: Instagram

Two months ago, Instagram launched its Snapchat Stories feature, which lets users create candid snapshots of their day. Now after more than 100 million people have become daily viewers, Instagram is making stories more visible to its 500 million monthly active users. Starting today, they’ll be accessible within the photo-sharing app’s Explore tab, helping more people discover what others are seeing throughout the day.

Within the Explore tab, there will be a new suggested stories section that highlights a selection of stories from across all users. It’s unclear how these are curated, be it by Instagram’s human editors or based on activity and algorithm, but it’s likely a way to help you discover new people to follow. In the app’s help center, this explanation is provided: “Posts are selected automatically based on things like the people you follow or the posts you like.”

Only public stories are eligible to be featured, so if you don’t want a particular story to be targeted, just set it for private.

This is the latest update to the Explore tab, which has progressed from showing just photos to including dedicated video channels around specific events and now these ephemeral stories that people are rapidly creating.