Rolls Out Expiring Stories Under Status
Following closely in the footsteps of Snapchat and Instagram Stories, your goto messaging app Whatsapp now has its own expiring stories under ‘Status’. After testing out the rather controversial feature back in November, stories were made available to users worldwide by the end of February, causing a general social media meltdown featuring approving and disapproving comments, jokes and endless complaints. To view their contacts’ disappearing stories or share their own, users need to head to the revamped ‘Status’ tab. Just like Snapchat, users can customize their images with drawings and captions before sending them out to the contacts of their choice. And while the feature was dubbed “another Facebook-owned Snapchat Stories copycat” by leading tech blog Techcrunch soon after its launch, the blog reported that ‘Status’ could nevertheless pave the way for a whole new world of advertising opportunities for Whatsapp in the usual ads-in-between-statuses fashion, as previously seen with both Snapchat and Instagram.