YouTube Stories Receives Green Light for Broader Deployment of High Traffic Channels

While YouTube videos are becoming more sophisticated, the platform is developing a more casual method that creators can share with fans: YouTube Stories. After testing the largely imitated Stories format last year, YouTube now offers this feature to creators with over 10,000 subscribers, along with new features such as the ability to comment on articles.

The original Snapchat format has been widely adopted by several social media platforms, from Facebook to Instagram via LinkedIn. On YouTube, the abbreviated video format seems to be designed for less formal videos, such as casual vlogs and behind-the-scenes updates, as short vertical videos. Google calls the format light, easy and fun.

Unlike the original format of Stories (and most adaptations), YouTube Stories will remain a week instead of a day. As with Instagram, creators who already have access to the feature, like FashionByAlly, have also recorded and categorized some stories to allow viewers to look beyond that seven-day period. The format also fits the usual options for pasting video with stickers and text, or for adjusting video with a filter.

While YouTube Stories had already been launched on a small group of creators, today's larger deployment also offers a new comment feature. Stories comments will have options similar to regular YouTube comments, including comment moderation, up / down navigation buttons, and heart-shaped buttons. Creators can also respond to comments directly in the story.

Creators record a YouTube story using the camera's application. To see this feature, creators must be part of the YouTube partnership program, which must involve at least 10,000 subscribers.

Stories can be spotted in its own tab on the channel page, but will also be deployed in the Subscriptions tab. For non-subscribers, stories may still appear on the home page or in the lists to follow.

This feature could offer creators an informal way to share beyond traditional YouTube video. Critics of the new feature call it a copy effort, others complain about seeing chain stories to which they are not subscribed.

YouTube started testing Stories a year ago, originally calling the Reels feature before switching to the more common Stories. YouTube indicates that today's larger deployment includes feedback from these early tests.