Facebook Stories

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered to be a second news feed for the social media website.[1] It is focused around Facebook's in-app camera which allows users to use fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.[1]

"As people mostly post photos and videos, Stories is the way they’re going to want to do it," says Facebook Camera product manager Connor Hayes, noting Facebook's shift away from text status updates after ten years as its primary sharing option. "Obviously we’ve seen this doing very well in other apps. Snapchat has really pioneered this," explained Hayes.[2] Facebook has seen much success through other applications like Snapchat and Instagram, especially since Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012.[3]

History

After the many failed attempts of trying to incorporate Snapchat-like features on Facebook, the company decided to test run Messenger Day. In 2016, Facebook created a feature called Messenger Day, which allowed users to post videos and pictures with filters for 24 hours only. This project was only used in Poland because of the unpopularity of Snapchat in that region. Users are able to add texts and colorful graphics. However, this was only a test for Facebook to be later turned into a feature on Facebook's app.[4]

Popularity and criticism

As of 2017, Facebook Stories is much less popular among social media users than Snapchat and Instagram.[5] In August 2016, Instagram stories, which is a part of the Facebook owned Instagram, was created and as of June 2017, had 250 million active users. Mark Zuckerberg states, "It is important to release products that people are familiar with, but (Facebook Stories) is going to have the first mainstream augmented reality platform."[6]

In a campaign to get more Facebook users to use Facebook Stories, "Facebook is turning friends into ghosts who aren’t using stories. So, instead of the blank space that used to be there above the news feed, Facebook will show grayed-out icons of some frequently contacted friends, regardless of whether they’ve ever posted to their Facebook story before."[7]

But, apparently enough, Facebook users are annoyed with having the stories appear at the top of their news feed with no way to turn it off, as seen in Facebook's Help Community question "How to turn off 'your story' on the top of my news feed",[8] that plugin extensions to Chrome[9] and Firefox[10] have been written specifically to hide Facebook stories. As of September 2019, Facebook itself has so far not created an off option for its users.

Features

Access Stories

There are two ways that a user can view Facebook Stories. First by scrolling to the top of the feed, the users are able to view your friends' Stories and create a story. Second, swipe right from any screen on the Facebook app. Users can't "like" Stories, but can reply to them.

Saving Stories

Before uploading content to a story, users are able to save it to the camera roll. Once users are done creating the story, press the down arrow to save on the camera roll, or the center arrow to share. Users are able to send a direct message to any friends, post to a timeline or add to a Story.[11]

Views

If users post a story to a timeline it will appear at the top of the profile as if it were any other picture or video. And just like posting to a Timeline, users can decide who sees it (Public, Friends and so on). But posting to a "Story" will make it available to all friends for a 24-hour period and will appear as a bubble at the top of their feeds. Right now, there's no way to select who sees—or doesn't see—a Story. To delete a story, go to the bottom right of the screen and click view icon tab and can delete a story by pressing on the buttons on the three dots at the top.[12]

Tools

Facebook is the first app to get animated face filters. The company worked with artists Hattie Stewart and Douglas Coupland to design original filters for the Facebook app.[13] To access lenses, swipe up and down but users have to apply them before recording or taking a picture, which is a key difference between Facebook stories and Snapchat. As well as video stories being 20 seconds and being able to replay a friends direct message.[14]

List of what is included in Facebook Camera:

  • Drawing with resizable marker and chalk brushes
  • Emoji stickers Colored captions
  • Animated selfie lenses and masks
  • Environmental effects like highlight lines and funhouse mirrors
  • Reactive filters that respond to movement like lava lamp colors
  • Alternative filters that surprise you with new effects if you get more people in frame
  • Fine-art-style transfers that make your images look like line drawings or impressionist paintings
  • Professional artist filters like Hattie Stewart's doodle bombs and Doug Copeland's psychedelia
  • Licensed filters from six movie studios, including a Minions filter
  • Cause-supporting filters like rainbows for gay pride
  • Geotagged location filters for certain places
  • Country-specific filters for around ten initial markets

References
  1. Dillet, Romain. "Facebook launches Stories in the main Facebook app | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  2. Constine, Josh. "Facebook pivots into Stories | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  3. Contributor. "Facebook Buys Instagram For $1 Billion, Turns Budding Rival Into Its Standalone Photo App | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  4. Welch, Chris (2016-09-30). "Facebook is testing a clone of Snapchat stories inside Messenger". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  5. Beres, Damon. "Seriously, no one is using Facebook Stories". Mashable. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  6. Constine, Josh. "Zuck says copying Snapchat was just step 1 of Facebook's AR platform | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  7. Gartenberg, Chaim (2017-04-05). "No one is using Facebook stories, so it turned your friends into ghosts". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  8. https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10155220565308993
  9. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-facebook-stories-by/bmdojajkoijjohmpajiagmpempmkeiii
  10. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-facebook-stories
  11. "Facebook Stories Launch on Facebook's Mobile App: Here's What You Need to Know". Social. 2017-03-28. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  12. "Facebook Stories: 10 things to know about the Snapchat-like feature". CNET. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  13. Newton, Casey (2017-03-28). "Facebook launches stories to complete its all-out assault on Snapchat". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  14. "Facebook Stories: 10 things to know about the Snapchat-like feature". CNET. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
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