Stories are over — at least on YouTube, that is. The Google-owned video site today announced that YouTube Stories will be discontinued on June 26, 2023, as the company aims to focus on other key areas such as short films, community posts, and live videos in addition to traditional long-form content. . Creators will be notified of the closure through various channels, such as forum posts, in-app posts, reminders in YouTube Studio and more, YouTube says.
Once copied by almost every social app, Stories have lost traction in the wake of TikTok’s rise. Today, services use the short vertical video format popularized by TikTok instead of the more ephemeral and casual Stories format.
YouTube isn’t the only one leaving Stories either. Netflix had been testing a Stories-like feature called “Extras” in its mobile app in recent years where it shared videos and photos from popular shows. The streamer later went on to embrace vertical video with the launch of features such as the “Fast Laughs” short comedy video feed and a related vertical video feature aimed at children. LinkedIn also abandoned the Stories feature in 2021. And while Spotify recently introduced a feature similar to Artist Profile Stories, the app’s larger redesign is one that prioritizes TikTok-esque discovery feeds as its central focus.
YouTube, which first launched in 2018, officially rolled out Stories to creators with more than 10,000 subscribers, but it never broadened access to everyone on YouTube to really get casual, in-person sharing off the ground. At the time, the company had suggested that creators could use Stories to engage with their audiences in between their more polished and produced videos for things like behind-the-scenes updates, vlogs, previews of upcoming videos, quick updates, and more.
Image Credits: YouTube
Like Stories on Instagram and Snapchat, YouTube Stories would disappear over time, in this case seven days. However, it was not possible to save Stories to a creator’s profile like you can with Instagram’s Story Highlights.
It’s fair to say the feature had limited adoption, especially given the success of other engagement tools like community posts, which also allow creators to share quick updates, promote their content, or have conversations with fans. In fact, YouTube admits that Stories didn’t work, noting in today’s announcement that, among creators using both Stories and Community posts, the latter generated “many times more comments and likes” compared to Stories . Access to community posts has recently expanded to a wider group of creators as YouTube dropped the 500+ subscriber requirement.
In addition, creators have shifted their short video efforts to YouTube Shorts. The company notes that this format is also more successful than Stories, as creators using both saw, on average, “many times more subscribers” on Shorts than Stories.
“As the adoption of Shorts on YouTube grew, we saw creators taking advantage of this new format,” a YouTube spokesperson told AapkaDost of the changes. “Stories are disappearing so we can prioritize the key areas creators need to be successful. We continue to invest in helping creators grow and connect with their audiences across formats,” she added.
In addition to a community forum post, creators who regularly use Stories will be notified of their discontinuation through a notification in YouTube Studio, in Help Center content, and YouTube will remind creators of the changes in an upcoming Creator Insider video, where it regularly publishes updates. Additionally, a notification will appear directly in Stories if creators access the feature before June 26.
It will no longer be possible to create a new YouTube Story on that date, but Stories that are already live will remain for seven days after they were originally shared, YouTube says.