Snapchat, which was recently valued at $22.7 billion in May, is increasingly seen as a viable threat by Facebook — which owns Instagram — because of how the start-up is increasingly dominating the attention of younger users.
The social media giant tried to buy Snapchat more than three years ago for $3 billion, which CEO Evan Spiegel turned down.
That hasn't ended Facebook's attempts to imitate the company, whose app has become extraordinarily popular among young people for its ephemeral videos.
Among Facebook's efforts to imitate Snapchat include "Poke," launched in 2012, which featured disappearing chats an video -- essentially the same sort of experience. Poke didn't take off, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later dismissed as "a joke."
Instagram also launched a Snapchat imitator called "Bolt" in 2014. It too was not a success, and the app was later pulled.
"Our mission has always been to capture and share the world's moments, not just the world's most beautiful moments," Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told The New York Times. "Stories will alleviate a ton of the pressure people have to post their absolute best stuff."
Stories launches Tuesday on both iOS and Android platforms.
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