Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on Monday announced that the messaging app will allow users to start adding stories in early July.
In a message shared through his Telegram channel, Durov said most users have requested the story feature.
“Initially, we were against this since Stories are already everywhere. However, Telegram wouldn’t be Telegram if we didn’t listen to our users and didn’t innovate on existing formats,” Durov said.
Through the feature, users will be able to share photos and videos that disappear after a while and allow them to choose who can see each of their stories.
However, Telegram has enhanced the feature by allowing users to choose whether a story will expire after 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours, unlike other apps that allow stories to disappear after 24 hours.
“Once we launch the ability to repost messages from channels to stories, going viral on Telegram will become a lot easier,” Durov said.
Telegram will also let users create lists with different contacts for each Story.
This will allow a user to share a specific story with their best friend and another one with their co-workers.
“Following our internal tests of Stories, even the skeptics on our team started to appreciate this feature. We can no longer imagine Telegram without it,” Durov said.