Snapchat’s next big thing: ‘Stories’ that don’t just disappear

This product being rolled out by Snapchat, entitled “Stories”, could be a really big deal. It’s a fairly clever solve for the grey area between content that lives forever and content and exists for only 5 seconds. It blends the autobiographical vanity of Facebook with the spontaneity of the wildly popular Snapchat.

To summarize, you can Snapchat an image to “My Story” rather than a particular contact. When you do this, it gets added to an ongoing reel of the last 24 hours of your personal highlights. In your contacts view, next to a friend who has a “story”, you can tap to view their last 24 hours of Snapchats they have curated to tell their story.