Instagram launches its BeReal clone, Candid Stories

Instagram’s BeReal clone is now official. Meta introduced “Candid Stories,” a new feature with Instagram Stories that recreates BeReal’s signature once-a-day selfies.

BeReal, which originally launched in 2019, has gained a steady following over the last year, particularly among teens and Gen Z users. The app markets itself as a more authentic alternative to mainstream social media platforms, since it only allows once-daily posting and has limited ways for users to interact with one another.

Like BeReal, Instagram’s Candid will prompt users once a day to share a selfie, and users will only be able to see their friend’s Candids once they have uploaded their own. Candid selfies, like BeReal posts, will snap a photo with both a device’s front and rear-facing cameras simultaneously.

Meta has been working on a version of Candid since at least this summer, when a feature called “candid Challenges” was spotted in the app. The company said at the time it was an “internal prototype.” Snapchat and TikTok have also launched takes on BeReal in recent months.

But BeReal isn’t the only platform Instagram is taking on with its latest update. The app is also introducing a new “Notes” feature, which allows users to append a 60-character status update to their profile in Instagram’s inbox. As with Candid, Instagram has been testing Notes for months, but the feature may have taken on new significance following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The New York Times reported last week that some at Meta have suggested Notes could help the company compete with Twitter at a moment when many are searching for alternatives.

Instagram is also introducing a few other features geared toward getting users to interact in smaller groups. “Group Profiles” will allow groups of friends to create shared profiles with multiple contributors. Likewise, the app is testing “collaborative collections” so multiple people can share posts to the same space in the app.

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