Facebook kicks off global rollout of Snapchat-like Stories feature in its mainland app

Facebook has infamously ripped off Snapchat’s Stories feature wholesale with auto-vanishing slideshows on Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to the similar recently introduced feature on Messenger, called Messenger Day.  The social networking behemoth was recently caught testing Snapchat-like Stories feature in its mobile app. According to TechCrunch, the company has now begun a staggered rollout of Facebook Stories to all users worldwide.

Stories from your friends appear at the top of the mainland Facebook app.

Simply tap a circle to see that friend’s story in an auto-advancing slideshow format. You can also tap through the photos and videos in a Story, reply to someone’s Story with a direct message and more. And when you share your own Story on Facebook, everything you’ve chosen to share automatically disappears after 24 hours.

Using Facebook’s creative tools, you can adorn your photos or videos with emoji, drawings, annotations and more before posting them in a Story. Thankfully, Stories don’t appear in your Facebook News Feed or on your profile’s timeline.

The feature appears to be rolling out to a large number of Facebook users across the world. It’s a staggered release so check back in a few days if you Stories don’t currently show up at the top of Facebook for iPhone and iPad.

“The way people share today is different to five or even two years ago—it’s much more visual, with more photos and videos than ever before,” Facebook said in a statement.

“We want to make it fast and fun for people to share creative and expressive photos and videos with whoever they want, whenever they want.”

Facebook has about 1.7 billion monthly active users so this change is likely to irk a whole bunch of people. A new WhatsApp Status feature, for example, has frustrated many by sitting right at the top of the app—so much so that Facebook has promised to bring back the original text-based status feature.

Has Facebook gone too far with its efforts to throw Snapchat’s core functionality into not just its mainland app, but also Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, do you think?

Source: TechCrunch