Telegram has launched a new offering for Premium subscribers
that it had been testing for a while. This is a new Stories feature, the
function of which is similar to that of Stories on Snapchat, Instagram and other
popular social platforms.
A new plus icon will be displayed at the top of a subscriber’s
chat list, from where they can post their Story. Telegram Stories will automatically
disappear after a duration of 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours, depending on the user’s
choice. Users can also choose to permanently keep their Stories on their profile
by pinning them, and can later take them off too. Each story will have its
individual privacy setting too, for allowing only certain people to view it.
In addition to regular photos and videos, users of the functionality will also be able to capture pictures and videos from both their front and rear cameras simultaneously; a feature similar to BeReal’s, which was also temporarily adopted by TikTok.
Stories have become an integral element for engagement, ever
since Snapchat originally launched them, followed by Meta’s own version of the
feature that was expanded to all its platforms over time. As Telegram’s rival
messaging platforms WhatsApp and Signal adopted the functionality, Telegram has
had to keep up too. The company’s CEO Pavel Durov revealed that the team could
not imagine Telegram without Stories once the idea of its integration was finalized.
Telegram says that Stories are available to premium users “currently,”
which indicates that the feature could be rolled out to all users some time later.
