Instagram adds features that mimic Twitter and Snap tools

[...] 2016 has been a year of reinvention for the photo-sharing social network, which has broadened what it lets people do with their images.

Weil said this philosophy, and the feature choices that stem from it, would encourage people to use Instagram for more than the selected, highly polished feeds for which it is known.

The new features thrust Instagram more directly into competition with Twitter and into a heightened rivalry with Snap, which is particularly notable as Snap recently filed paperwork to go public.

Instagram’s other new feature, disappearing photos and videos within the company’s private messaging tool, will be available to all its users.

Snapchat rose to prominence in a post-Facebook era of social media, one in which people grew fond of the idea that their digital history did not have to follow them around the Internet in perpetuity.

Weil defended the company’s move into ephemeral sharing and pointed to improvements and product adjustments that he said highlighted Instagram’s innovation with the format.