Instagram is working on a new tool that will allow content creators to charge for “exclusive” content.
Instagram is apparently looking to venture into the world of subscription services with a feature that resembles Twitter’s Super Follows, as reported by TechCrunch.
Dubbed “Exclusive Stories,” the feature, spotted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi, allows creators to post exclusive content on Instagram Stories. This would then be available to followers who’ve subscribed to view them.
Paluzzi went ahead to share screenshots of the rumoured feature, showing exclusive stories indicated by a purple tag. Trying to view an exclusive story without being a subscriber brings up a pop-up that reminds you only fans can watch
How will it work?
Stories can’t be screenshotted but can be saved as “Highlights for your fans” so they’ll always have something to watch when they join. Instagram did not respond to a request for comment independent before the time of publication.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has said that the app is no longer a “photo-sharing app”. Instead, the company will move towards entertainment. Mr Mosseri pointed to four key areas of app development: creator, video, purchase and messaging.
He said:
“Let’s be honest, there’s some really serious competition right now, TikTok is huge, YouTube is even bigger, and so are many other upstarts.”
Exploring NFTS.
Mr Mosseri previously told The Information that the company is exploring subscriptions and new features such as NFTs (fungible tokens).
These have been launched in various fields including music, art and sports, are created and sold in the marketplace for crypto goods – often for large amounts of money. However, ‘digital goods’ are not exclusive. One can screenshot or download NFTs as they would any other image or video, and are more akin to a digital work signature than a unique good in itself.
Paluzzi has also found references to digital collectibles in the Instagram app last month.
Instagram isn’t the only social media company moving towards tickets and exclusive content. Twitter announced a Super Follow feature that will let users lock their posts behind a paywall in February 2021, as well as ticketed locations that will let users charge for access to the audio-only space last month.
Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, also launched a newsletter platform called Bulletin to better compete with platforms like Substack; Twitter also bought a newsletter company called Review in February.