Instagram Stories turns pretty pictures into buying opportunities

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Instagram is starting to feel like a giant advertisement.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Your favorite Instagram Story feeds are about to get invaded by more advertisements.

The photo-sharing social network revealed today that it is expanding its shopping features beyond the regular feed and will start letting users share shopping advertisements in their Stories.


Instagram stories

Starting today, you’ll start seeing little stickers with a shopping bag icon on it in other brands’ stories. Tapping on the icon brings up details about the product and the option to buy it.

Instead of rolling the feature out to all users at once, Instagram is going to let select brands like Adidas, Aritzia and Louis Vuitton test the waters first. More brands will be added later.

For Instagram, the change could mean a huge increase in revenues. But for regular users, it might make the platform less intimate and make it feel like one giant advertisement.

Instagram says over 300 million people use Stories every day as a way to keep connected to what’s happening with their favorite bands.

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