Instagram Stories now allows users to add songs; Meanwhile, Instagram Lite debuts

Fresh from announcing that it had reached a billion active users on a monthly basis and introducing a new IGTV video uploading service more than a week ago, Instagram is now allowing its users to add their favorite tunes to their Stories. The social media giant actually already had presented a prototype of the feature some time last month, but now it has formally announced that the functionality is now rolling out to Android and iOS mobile users, although initially only in half a dozen countries including the United States.

Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, has definitely taken full advantage of the deals it had struck with a number of record labels. The result is that users now get to select from thousands of tracks from a diverse range of recording artists, from best selling pop stars like Bruno Mars to classic rockers like Guns N’ Roses. 

It is always more fun when music is involved, and Instagram users now get to choose a soundtrack for their Stories. Not only is the creation of Instagram Stories more fun (because some experiences just are not complete without the accompaniment of the Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition), viewers of Stories also get to enjoy a more tuneful experience. It is features like this that continue to boost the Instagram Stories brand -- as a matter of fact, Instagram has recently revealed that Stories now attracts around 400 million users daily, improving upon the 300 million mark it achieved back in November of last year.

Meanwhile, it appears that Instagram Lite has made its debut in the Google Play app store, albeit quietly. The Instagram Lite mobile app is exactly as it sounds -- a more lightweight version of the regular Instagram app that can be downloaded easily and does not take up too much space in consumers’ handsets.

How lightweight exactly? Well, the Instagram Lite app’s size is just 573 kilobytes, which is only about 1.81 percent of the size of the regular Instagram app (32 megabytes). Instagram Lite may be small, but it still comes with some nifty tricks, including allowing users to filter and post images to their feed or Stories, view Stories of other users, and even browse the Explore page. Sure, it does not let people send direct messages to buddies or share video clips, but for those who are okay with that, Instagram Lite should still be a delight.