Our day-to-day lives cannot move on without browsing through Instagram (neglecting its perils), but that curiosity to know what’s new in the lives of our friends and perhaps acquaintances leads us to regularly view their Instagram stories. Instagram Stories has become synonymous with our lives, but now we have Telegram, which is all set to roll out a similar feature. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov revealed that the messaging service will soon include Stories.
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According to Durov, users have been requesting the feature for a long time, and more than half of all feature requests Telegram receives are for Stories. According to Durov, the company first opposed adding Stories since they “are already everywhere,” but decided to do so after customer feedback.
Telegram’s story feature will let its users have complete control over who can view their stories. One can enjoy the liberty to specify whether or not anyone—only your connections, a small number of carefully chosen contacts, or a list of close friends—can see your Stories. At the top of a user’s chat list, in an expanded section, one can find stories. By relocating them to the “Hidden” list in their Contacts area rather than the main page, users will be able to hide Stories submitted by any contact.
The stories feature will be rolled out with a few attributes, like captions and links, that can be added by users to their Stories. Additionally, one will be able to tag other people in their Stories. Notably, one will be able to concurrently post pictures and movies made with their front and back cameras. This attribution is similar to what one does in BeReal, which is currently creating buzz.
What’s more, the user will also be able to decide when their stories expire. On Instagram, the stories automatically expire after 24 hours, but on Telegram, the users will have four options for expiration. This includes a six-, 12-, 24-, or 48-hour expiration date. Further, on Instagram, users can choose to create highlights on their profiles, wherein they add their stories permanently to their profiles. These highlights can be accessed by anyone who can access a user’s stories. In a similar manner, users can permanently display Stories on their profile page on Telegram.
While announcing the feature, Pavel Durov wrote, “The ability to save your stories to the profile page will make Telegram profiles more informative and colorful.” Durove further added, “You will not only be able to explore more content from your closest contacts, but finally discover more information about users you connect with in groups or channel comments. Speaking of channels, they will benefit from more exposure and subscribers: once we launch the ability to repost messages from channels to stories, going viral on Telegram will become a lot easier.”
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Even the Telegram team’s sceptics began to value the feature after internal tests of Stories, according to Durov, and Telegram can no longer fathom the messaging service without it. Stories will be accessible in early July after they have completed their final testing phase. Durov thinks the function will “herald a new era on Telegram” and make the service more sociable than it is now.
