In a bid to compete with Instagram and Snapchat – YouTube added the functionality for creators to be able to add stories to their profiles. YouTube has announced that what they had previously called “Reels” will stop functioning by the end of June (June 26th to be exact) which means there is only 1 month left to use the feature. After this point, any posts that are already there will expire after 7 days.
When explaining the decision to get rid of this function, they stated it was to focus on other features such as YouTube shorts, videos that are live-streamed, and the long-form traditional video content that YouTube is known so well for. The feature was only available to channels that had over 10,000 subscribers – so in fact, it wasn’t used by many.
To be fair, it could be a case of them doing too much, and trying to be everything to everyone rather than focusing on what they were originally successful for. Stories were similar to that of Instagram in that you could add filters, stickers, and text. You could also trim/cut the video when getting ready to post. The user interface was even similar to Snapchat in the way it operated, in that you could press down simply to capture and edit from there.
They did the same with YouTube shorts. Their YouTube shorts were created after the notable rise in popularity in TikTok where people were keen to watch shorter videos that were more easy to digest. They have been more widely used than stories – however, it is a symbol that YouTube has been trying to keep up with the neighbours so to speak.
By getting rid of stories – it could be their way of saying that instead of deciding to go head to head with other social media outlets like Instagram and Snapchat – they will instead stick to what they are good at and known for.
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