New York, Mar 29 (IANS): After Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp got a Snapchat-like "Stories" update, users on Tuesday got access to the new Facebook Camera feature that lets them add effects to their photos and videos.

They can now share this content to a Snapchat clone called 'Facebook Stories' that appears above News Feed on mobile and works similar to Instagram's 24-hour slideshows.

Users can also share these posts to News Feed of individual friends through the new 'Facebook Direct' private visual messages that disappear after some time.

"As people mostly post photos and videos, 'Stories' is the way they're going to want to do it. Obviously we've seen this doing very well in other apps. Snapchat has really pioneered this," technology website Tech Crunch quoted Facebook Camera product manager Connor Hayes as saying.

He said Facebook was shifting away from text status updates after 10 years as its primary sharing option.

According to Hayes, the rapid ascent of Instagram Stories to 150 million daily users inspired the Menlo Park social media giant to start testing its own Stories in January, and keep expanding it to 12 countries before rollout.

"We've tested in markets with Instagram Stories and Messenger Day, and we've seen this as accretive. They end up posting more and they like using the 'Stories' format across apps," Hayes added.

WhatsApp recently received thumbs down when it changed from a text-based to a stories-based status update.

The company brought back the text-based status update feature last week.