LinkedIn is doing away with its disappearing-messages format Stories, its Senior Director of Product Liz Li has said.
In doing so, it will follow fellow social media bigwig Twitter, which earlier this year discontinued a similar experiment called Fleets.
The disappearing-messages format was popularized by Snapchat, which would go on to give it a snazzier look with filters, emojis, stickers, and other enhancements.
Facebook would pick it up soon, and deploy its own version of the format on its own website and mobile app.
This would spread to FB-owned platforms WhatsApp and Instagram, gaining widespread popularity.
One big way this format differs from TikTok or Reels of Instagram is that those short-video formats do not entail the message going away after 24 hours.
LinkedIn’s Li has said the social media platform for professionals would “remove the current Stories experience by the end of September, as we work on the new experience.”
She explained: “In developing Stories, we assumed people wouldn’t want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting. Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality and expertise.”
Liz went on to add: “You want more creative tools to make engaging videos. With Stories, members could use Stickers and The Question of the Day prompts to make videos more creative and engaging. But you want even more ways to spruce up those videos in a professional context, and you want to do so across LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn is said to now be taking these learnings to evolve the Stories format into a “reimagined video experience across LinkedIn that’s even richer and more conversational.”
