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Telegram is rolling out a Stories feature months after YouTube killed its own

Published Aug 14th, 2023 8:40PM EDT
Stories feature on Telegram
Image: Telegram

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While YouTube might be abandoning Stories, Telegram is going all-in.

In a blog post, Telegram announced that it is officially rolling out its Stories feature to all of its users. The company, which is celebrating its 10th birthday today, is releasing a number of features for Stories, including expanding the feature from just Premium users to all users of the social media app.

Telegram says that all users will start to get access to its Stories feature today, and a ton of things are launching along with it. One of the coolest features you can use when creating a story is the dual-camera mode, which allows you to capture what you are looking at along with your reaction. You’ll also be able to use stickers on a story, tag a location, and add captions that can include mentions and links.

You can also select who sees your stories. Telegram allows you to choose between four different levels of privacy: everyone, contacts, close friends, and selected contacts. So, you’ll be able to tailor your stories only to the exact group of people you want to see them — even if that only happens to be one particular person in your contacts. The company is also allowing you to choose people who you never want to be able to see your stories — a perfect way to hide things from your boss.

It’s interesting to see Telegram going all-in on a stories feature, especially when YouTube, which is obviously much bigger than Telegram, recently killed off YouTube Stories from its platform. While that may seem weird, YouTube has Shorts, which users flocked to compared to Stories, so it’s actually not surprising to see the company dump the feature. I personally forgot YouTube had Stories for a while, which probably explains a lot.

Telegram says that Stories are launching today, so feel free to update your app and start posting vertical videos to yet another platform.

Joe Wituschek Tech News Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Tech News Contributor for BGR.

With expertise in tech that spans over 10 years, Joe covers the technology industry's breaking news, opinion pieces and reviews.