Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
TikTokâs experiment with Snapchat-style stories is continuing, with the company further rolling out the feature to a larger group of users today. If youâve gotten the feature, youâll be greeted with a new banner when you launch the app encouraging you to create a story.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, TikTok noted that âCurrently, weâre expanding a pilot test, which provides creators with additional formats to bring their creative ideas to life for the TikTok community,â although that doesnât say how many users are currently included in the test or what the future rollout of the feature will look like.
Adding a video or photo to a story works extremely similarly to taking a photo or video for TikTokâs standard feature, with the same editing tools, effects, filters, and sounds. Unlike a regular TikTok video, though, stories wonât show up directly on your profile or feed and disappear after 24 hours.
TikTok stories are also missing a major feature that Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, and others all offer â critically, it lacks the scrolling bar of stories from accounts you follow to tap through (although images from TikTokâs earlier test show that the company was experimenting with a pop-over vertical window that would have served a similar function).
Right now, though, the only way to see a TikTok story (assuming youâve been selected to try the feature out) is to see a blue-circled profile picture on a video youâre watching. Tap it, and youâll launch you straight into the story feed for that user. You can also see the same blue circle on a userâs profile if youâre viewing it, and tapping the profile picture there will also let you view the story.
Still, given the popularity of stories in other social media apps and TikTokâs ongoing tests, it seems like a formal rollout of the feature to the entire TikTok user base is less a question of âif?â and more âwhen?â.