By Rachel Kaser
Rachel is a writer and former game critic from Central Texas.
The latest feature Instagrams testing will let you add music to your Stories, though exactly what form that music will take isnt yet clear.
First spotted by Ishan Agarwal in Instagrams code, the feature, called Music Stickers, apparently allows users to search for music clips to play over their Stories as followers view them. Youd search for appropriate tunes under different tabs labelled Trending, Genres, and Moods.
Its not yet certain where the music will come from, or what form itll take. Will it play a clip from the songs chorus, or the whole song? If it does play a clip, will you be able to select which clip? Well have to wait until the feature rolls out to know for sure.
If Music Stickers do give users the unfettered access their name implies, itd likely be from parent company Facebooks licensing deals with UMG, Sony, and Warner Bros. The deal with UMG specified its music could be used in video and other social experiences across Facebook, Instagram and Oculus. At the time, I wondered what other social experiences could be. Looks like this might be the answer.
Instagrams added several features in the last few months, so many that its almost hard to keep up. To Stories specifically, its added Type for text updates, as well as sharing screenshots from third-party apps directly to your Stories. Its also experimenting with restaurant bookings, group video calls, a special portrait mode called Focus, and followable hashtags. Music would be the proverbial cherry on top.
This article has been previously published on The Next Web.