Instagram is continuing its relentless assault on Snapchat today with its addition of geostickers to Instagram Stories. The stickers work just like the Snapchat stickers do, giving users unique illustrations to represent the area they are in.
According to Instagram, the first places getting more advanced citywide and neighborhood unique stickers are New York City and Jakarta. These new geostickers are being added into Instagram Stories’ current lineup of stickers, and will be accessible to Instagram users worldwide with the latest 10.11 update released today on iOS and Android.
An interesting twist to Instagram’s version of the geostickers is that viewers can touch the sticker and be taken to a location page for that place, populated with local Instagram posts. It’s sort of a neat way to explore the world and see what others who have visited a similar place have seen and experienced.
This addition to Instagram was one of the last unique features that Snapchat has held over Facebook’s image-sharing network, and with this now complete, the final note (which is likely coming) is the augmented reality Snapchat filters that keeps users on that platform.
This news looks to just be compounding an already-dire situation for Snapchat, which has seen its stock prices drop around 24 percent over the last two days. This after news started circling about the massive drop in new signups and usage after these cloned Instagram features started rolling out.
It is yet to be seen if Snapchat can weather the Instagram storm, but one thing that is very clear by this point is that Facebook and Instagram are not pulling any punches, and are going after Snapchat and its users with everything they’ve got. It’s the proverbial David versus Goliath of social media, and it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
