WhatsApp Rolling Out Status Feature for Android and iOS To Take On Snapchat And Instagram Stories

As you all know, Snapchat released Stories to all and Facebook seems remarkably focused on bringing its own Stories-inspired feature to its apps.




And as the owner of WhatsApp, Facebook and WhatsApp just announced that they are adding a new Stories feature, which will live in a new tab all to themselves.

Similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories, WhatsApp status disappears after 24 hours. You can tap to move to the next status, edit and post photos, videos and GIFs as your new status. This will be a major addition to WhatsApp as until now you can only write plain simple text with emojis as your status update. Users will have the ability to control who can see their status updates from privacy settings.

As The Verge reports, WhatsApp is symbolizing the eighth birthday of the messaging app:

“When WhatsApp launched nearly 8 years ago (on Feb. 24th), it started as an app for sharing status updates, where people could type a short line of text to let their friends know what they were up to,” the company said in a blog post. “When we noticed people were using the feature to communicate in real time, we redesigned WhatsApp as a messaging app.”

It isn’t a secret at this point that Facebook wants to blunt the growth of Snapchat, which is one reason why the Snapchat-like Stories keeps showing up in Facebook’s apps.

WhatsApp Status will start rolling out from today on Android and iOS starting from Netherlands, France, and other countries before rolling out globally.

Source : WhatsApp