Facebook launched Stories in June 2017 to join Instagram Stories, Messenger Day and WhatsApp Status. Stories was an ephemeral feature they cloned from Snapchat, its rival social media app. The stories posted straight from the app on top of your feed lasted for 24 hours and now Facebook wants them to stay for longer.
In a screenshot shared on Twitter by reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Facebook seems to be testing 3-day Stories.
Facebook is working on Stories that last 3 days pic.twitter.com/6S5sLpMrzA
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 15, 2020
This is not a surprise. in 2018, during their earning’s call, Facebook revealed stunted user growth and was looking into building businesses around Stories which has been a huge hit. In April 2019, Facebook Stories had 500 million users in tandem with Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status while Snapchat had 190 million daily active users. This number could be more by now.
Facebook has also squeezed cash out of Stories – having over 3 million advertisers that have bought ads on this feature.
It’ll be interesting to see how 3-day Stories work out for both consumers and advertisers.
“If you give people a place to put their face at the top of their friends’ phones, they’ll fill it. And if someone dangles a window into the lives of people you know and people you wish you did, you’ll open that window regularly,” writes Josh Constine.
