Instagram Stories is now being used by 100 million active daily users. The feature was introduced two months ago and has a close resemblance to Snapchat, which currently has a user base of 150 million active daily users. Instagram, on the other hand, has 500 million daily active users, according to figures released in June this year.

According to BuzzFeed, Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram, initially planned to roll out the feature in a different way. The alternative approach involved adding a checkbox option to let users decide whether they wanted their messages to be deleted after a specified period. However, it was decided that such additional step would make the process too cumbersome for users.

The feature is similar to the functionality of Snapchat. There is no indication that Snapchat has suffered any mass migration of its users to Instagram. Instagram Stories feature can be used for broadcasting self-destructing videos and pictures. These messages are designed to delete themselves in 24 hours.

Instagram is looking to boost casual sharing of videos and pictures among the users. The feature is likely to make users spend more time on the app. Stories can be accessed from the top of the Instagram feed. It appears as a series of mini circles showing the people and pages followed by the user.

Each story can be accessed by tapping that circle. It shows updates on a chronological basis. The positioning of Stories from different users is determined algorithmically, just like the Facebook feed design.