‘Facebook Follows Snapchat and Instagram With its Own Version of Stories’ – Entrepreneur

Tom Brant says, “Facebook — like Snapchat and Instagram before it — is getting an ephemeral, video-based Stories feature.

The social network is testing Stories in Ireland, where as of today members can use the new format to share videos and photos with their friends that will disappear after 24 hours and won’t automatically show up in their News Feeds.

The idea is that people will use their Facebook iOS or Android app to add photos and videos from their smartphone throughout the day, and their friends will tap through the stories to see what they’ve been up to. It’s an opt-in approach, although if you want to make your story harder for people to ignore, you can set it to show up in people’s News Feeds.

There will be camera effects, too, like masks and frames that you can add to videos and photos. Your friends can reply to or comment on your stories with a new accompanying feature called Direct, which is essentially a chat room. Like Stories, it is separate from the News Feed that makes up Facebook’s bread and butter”.

Facebook Follows Snapchat and Instagram With its Own Version of Stories

Entrepreneur