YouTube Adds Its Own 'Stories' Feature, Initially Limited To Popular Creators Only

Snapchat created it first. Then Facebook copied it, followed by practically everyone else in the business, with some having even more success than the original trendsetter.

As people on the web expects contents to be re-written for mobile, visual contents are becoming more powerful than ever on social media. This gave the Story format a rise in popularity. Available on almost every popular social media as well as messaging apps, YouTube also wants to get a taste of it.

YouTube, the popular video-streaming platform, announced that it is launching 'YouTube Stories', as its own take to the next-generation social sharing format.

And just like any other Stories format present on other platforms, YouTube Stories looks and functions pretty much the same.

"Creating with Stories is lightweight, easy, and fun. Stories will have the fun creation tools that you know and love. You can add text, music, filters, YouTubey stickers, and more to make your story uniquely you! To create a story, just open the YouTube mobile app, tap on the video camera icon, and select 'Create Story.'"

What makes it a little different is that YouTube Stories last seven days. This is fairly longer than the regular 24-hour period for Stories on other platforms. But that is for a reason: initially the feature is only available to "eligible creators with 10K+ subscribers."

What this means, YouTube Stories is launched for only a small number of people.

To use this feature, those chosen users just need to tap the camera icon at the top of the screen, to then tap 'Story'. Then users can tap, or tap and hold the capture button to take a new photo or video, respectively. Users can also tap on the camera roll icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen to import an existing photo or video from their device.

From here, users can add extra elements to their post, including stickers, text and drawings, by tapping the appropriate icons at the top of the screen. When they're done editing the post, taping on the 'Post' button in the bottom-right corner of the screen will share the post to their channel.

YouTube Stories - add

As previously noted, the Story format is increasingly popular. With the nature of users with smartphones, creating Stories can be fastest and easiest way to share everyday things.

There is an old saying that says "a picture being worth a thousand words". Here, the Story format can be priceless as it provides an additional “sense” of feeling. Adding context to Stories help viewers understanding the depth of an event or situation, in a way that images or even long videos have difficulties to offer.

So YouTube Stories here makes sense.

YouTube started experimenting this Stories format for about a year. So clearly YouTube has been preparing things, and didn't jump into the bandwagon with little calculation. YouTube tends to be slower than other popular platforms when it comes to adding features. and YouTube Stories is no different.

With YouTube taking careful approach on this feature, the company wants to measure how users are liking or disliking it, as an approach before making it ready for a global roll out.

Stories is the fastest growing social sharing option, with more than a billion people using Stories every day across Facebook's family of apps alone. While the format is not a big hit for everyone, but inarguably, it is rising. And as it does, the format also promotes habitual sharing trends which translates to more engagement and more revenue for the platform the Story format is on.

With Snapchat as the trendsetter, many others have copied it. With YouTube into the Story business, it wouldn't be a surprise if others will soon follow.

Read: Facebook, Instagram Vs. Snapchat: Copying To Eliminate The Threats

Published: 
05/12/2018