Facebook-owned Instagram ramps up pressure on Snapchat

San Francisco

FACEBOOK-owned Instagram dialled up the pressure on Snapchat on Monday, adding ephemeral live video broadcasts and vanishing direct messages. "Send anything you want, from inside jokes to your worst selfies," Instagram said in a blog post.

"Unlike other messages in Direct, these photos and videos disappear from your friends' inboxes after they have seen them." The updates appeared aimed at getting people to use Instagram more for casual, quirky moments instead of seeing it as a platform for sharing li…