LinkedIn announced that it is giving up on its Stories product. Liz Li, who is the senior director of product, mentioned that it has decided to shut down the current experience provided by Stories from next month. The test phase of the feature was launched in February last year and resembled the Stories feature of Snapchat.
The company says that a reason for the removal is that its users were not happy with the disappearing video. People might not like to post informal videos on their LinkedIn profiles. Li mentioned that people prefer long and lasting videos that can cover their professional story in a way that can highlight both their personality and professional skills.
Twitter had earlier removed its Stories-like feature, Fleets in July. Twitter also found people wary of disappearing videos. The company had hoped that Fleets would help its users to join in conversations more comfortably. Twitter’s VP of product, Ilya Brown said that the expectations of more people joining conversations on the platform were not met. That’s why they decided to withdraw Fleets. Both the removals might be a forerunner of more social media companies removing their ephemeral video products. But Instagram and Snapchat Stories are well-liked, and it will be unlikely that these platforms will shut down the Stories feature. LinkedIn was also working on a Clubhouse-model platform. We can look forward to whether it will be successful or not.
