Telegram To Launch New 'Stories' Feature In July; Here's What CEO Pavel Durov Said

Messaging app Telegram on Tuesday announced that it is going to launch 'Stories' feature next month.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov made the announcement on his Telegram channel and said the Stories feature will be launched "in the Telegram way."

"For years, our users have been asking us to implement Stories in Telegram. More than half of all feature requests that we receive are related to Stories," he said.

"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 added.

• Privacy: Users will be able to define who can see each of their stories with granular precision: Everyone, only your contacts (with exceptions), a few selected contacts, or a list of Close Friends.

• Compact UI: Stories will be placed in an expandable section at the top of an users chat list, which makes them easily accessible without taking away valuable space.

• Flexibility: It will be easy to hide Stories posted by any contact, moving them to the 'Hidden' list in the Contacts section instead of the main screen.

• Captions: In addition to making use of dozens of powerful photo and video-editing tools, users will be able to provide captions for their stories to add more context or links and tag other people.

• Dual Camera Support: Building on the success of Telegram's Video Messages, the company is adding the option to post photos and videos taken by the front and the rear cameras simultaneously.

• Optional Ephemerality: Users will be able to choose when a story expires – in 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours – or permanently display stories on your profile page, with individual privacy settings for each.

"Overall, 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.

Stories are in their last testing phase and will become available in early July.

"This will herald a new era on Telegram, where it will become even more fun and social than it currently is," the CEO said.