YouTube Stories are going away from next month.
Stories, which have existed over the last 5 years as YouTube’s own take on the popular “stories” format inspired by Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging, will be discontinued from 26th June 2023.
“Starting on 6/26/2023 the option to create a new YouTube Story will no longer be available. Stories that are already live on that date will expire 7 days after they were originally shared,” an announcement by YouTube’s community manager on Google’s support pages reads.
Shorts have existed as a way for YouTube creators to share updates with their subscribers especially regarding new and upcoming content and, unlike the “stories” on other social media apps, have lasted for a week instead of the usual 24 hours.
Community posts, which can be viewed almost as the text-only equivalent of Stories, are staying.
Going forward, YouTube’s energies for short-form content will be solely trained on Shorts, its TikTok competitor.
YouTube joins Twitter in killing its “stories” app. The latter discontinued Fleets, its take on the “stories” craze, 3 years ago after having existed for just a year. WhatsApp uses “Status” as its “stories” feature while Instagram has “Stories” in addition to Reels, its own TikTok-style short videos. Reels saw the end of Instagram’s IGTV which had been seen by many as its YouTube rival. YouTube Story started out as Reels back in 2018 before a name change became necessary.
