Telegram announces it's launching Stories next month

First popularized in Snapchat, Stories has found its way into almost every platform at this point. Despite the feature’s popularity, Telegram had refused to add the feature to its service. Now it looks like the messaging app has had a change of mind.

In a blog post, the founder of Telegram, Paul Du Rove, announced that his company would be launching Stories on Telegram soon. According to Du Rove, Stories had been a highly requested feature among users. “More than half of all feature requests that we receive are related to Stories.”

Du Rove lists six key aspects they are working on to optimize Stories for Telegram. These aspects include:

• Privacy: Users can define who can see each story. These options include Everyone, only your contacts (with exceptions), a few selected contacts, or a list of Close Friends.
• Compact UI: Stories is in an expandable section at the top of the chat list.
• Flexibility: Users can hide Stories posted by any contact. It will be moved to the ‘Hidden’ list in your Contacts section instead of the main screen.
• Captions: Users will be able to use photo and video-editing tools, provide captions or links, and tag other people.
• Dual camera support: There will be an option to post photos and videos taken by the front and the rear cameras simultaneously.
• Optional ephemerality: Users can choose when a story expires — in 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours — or permanently display stories on their profile page, with individual privacy settings for each.

In addition to the announcement, Du Rove also provided a video displaying how the feature will work.

It looks like users won’t have to wait very long for the new feature to arrive, either. According to Du Rove, it should arrive sometime in early July.