According to The Verge, Instagram has confirmed that starting August 30th, the company will be stooping its “swipe-up” functionality that allows people to visit any website thats been linked by swiping up on stories. Instead of this functionality, Instagram says that they will be introducing link stickers, which as the name explains, will be stickers that users will be able to tap on in order to visit the linked websites.
The company says that they are planning to retire this wipe up functionality in an attempt to streamline the stories creation process and experience. They look to offer more “creative control” over how users format their stories and have better control over how users interact with content on the platform as users will be able to format the looks of the stickers which couldn’t have had been done with swipe ups.
This update comes after the company started out with some tests earlier this summer. In June, Instagram started testing out these tappable stickers for all the users, not just those who have been verified or have more than 10,000 followers.
Vishal Shah, Instagram’s former head of product told The Verge that stickers fit more seamlessly with the way people use the platform and interact with content. He also added that the aim of these stickers was to make this functionality more widely used for all the users. This would not only provide better usability but would also allow users to respond to stories with links, which wasn’t possible with swipe ups.
According to Instagram, people who have had swipe up privileges in the past will be the ones who will have access to the tappable stickers to start out with and will continue to evaluate over a mass rollout.
A spokesperson in conversation with The Verge said that the update will “help us determine whether it’s the right decision before expanding access to more people”
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