Telegram, the messaging platform, has unveiled a significant addition to its offerings: Stories. This Monday, the company made the official announcement, marking its 10th birthday. This feature was initially introduced for Premium users last month but has now been extended to the entire user base.
The distinctiveness of Telegram’s Stories stems from its editability even after posting, a unique aspect compared to Stories on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok. Unlike these platforms, Telegram users can modify their Stories without resorting to deletion and reuploading. This flexibility allows for changes in visibility, captions, text, stickers, and more, offering unparalleled creative control.
Telegram explained, “For the first time in the history of social media, you can update any element of your story at any time – changing its visibility, caption, on-screen text, stickers or anything else – without having to delete and repost it from scratch.“
Other aspects of Telegram’s Stories experience align with the familiar pattern found on other platforms. Users can choose who can view their Stories—everyone, contacts, select individuals, or a specific list of close friends. Stories reside in an expandable section atop the chat list. To further streamline customization, users can hide Stories from specific contacts by relocating them to the “Hidden” list in the Contacts section.
Furthermore, users possess control over their Story’s duration, ranging from six, 12, 24, or 48 hours. Alternatively, Stories can be perpetually displayed on one’s profile, similar to Instagram’s Story highlights. Captions, links, and tagging functionalities are also at users’ disposal. The capability to share photos and videos simultaneously from front and rear cameras, much like the BeReal format, adds to the feature’s versatility.
While Stories are now accessible to all users, Telegram continues to offer a special feature to its Premium users—Stealth Mode. This mode erases views of stories accessed within the past five minutes and conceals subsequent viewing activities for the next 25 minutes.
CEO Pavel Durov shared that user demands for Stories had persisted over the years. Despite initial reluctance due to their ubiquity on other platforms, Telegram chose to heed their user base and embark on this storytelling journey.