Stories. They’re everywhere. The feature pioneered by Snapchat in 2013, and embraced to a rather ridiculous extent by Meta and baked into everything from Facebook to Facebook Messenger to Instagram (most successfully, by far) to WhatsApp, experimented with by Google even, is now on its way to Telegram.
On that note – breaking news! Telegram has so far, somehow, managed to resist the appeal of adding Stories to its app. Well, not anymore. Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced today that Stories are going to be available on the platform starting early next month. If you’re wondering what they’ll look like, see below but be warned that the content may not be safe for work.
Durov says Telegram wouldn’t just outright copy the feature from its competitors (hear that, Meta?), but decided to do it in “the Telegram way”. This means you’ll pick who can see each of your stories “with granular precision” (everyone, only contacts with exceptions, a few selected contacts, or a list of close friends). The feature will live in an expandable section at the top of your chat list, and it will be easy to hide Stories posted by any contact.
Stories will support captions, as well as photos and videos taken by the front and rear cameras simultaneously. A Story will expire in 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours – your choice. Or you can set it so that some are permanently displayed on your profile, with individual privacy settings for each. And soon you’ll be able to repost messages from channels to Stories.
Durov says that after internal testing of the feature, even the skeptics on the team started to appreciate it, and now no member of the team can imagine Telegram without it. That means it’s probably here to stay once it lands.
