In February, the popular Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger service jumped on the "stories" bandwagon and replaced their in-app, text-based "About Me" status (you know, those lovely little messages where you can say "Sleeping" or "Not Sleeping" under the tiny nub of your profile picture). Taking its place was a clone of Snapchat's Stories feature, continuing the social media giant's recent trend of shamelessly copying Snapchat.
WhatsApp's text-based status feature was a delight to read for users who communicated with friends and loved ones around the world. It was a small insight into another user, and could be rewritten at any time based on the user's moods and thoughts, current holidays, or happenings. Last month, when WhatsApp took out this feature, users went emoji-bananas and hit the company with a wave of angry faces and...
Possibly lots of this?
Text-Based Status Messages Make Their Return
The Stories feature was never asked for, so users can rejoice in the fact that WhatsApp is now at least partially reverting this change.
According to TechCrunch, WhatsApp will bring back the text-based status feature soon, but it will have a new home. The latest beta for Android already has the old status message again, but the feature is now in the About section of your profile. The stable version of the Android app should see this same change in a few weeks, while iOS will be caught up soon after that.
We heard from our users that people missed the ability to set a persistent text-only update in their profile, so we've integrated this feature into the 'About' section in profile settings. Now, the update will appear next to profile names anytime you view contacts, such as when creating a new chat or looking at Group info. At the same time, we're continuing to build on the new Status feature that gives people fun and engaging ways to share photos, videos and GIFs with their friends and family throughout their day.
So the Stories feature will still be in place, and like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook in general, Stories will allow users to post pictures and videos in their About section, and then after 24 hours, watch it all fade away.
What do you think? Is Zuckerberg's aggressive plan to wipe out Snapchat working? Or are they getting sloppy?
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Cover image via iPhoneDigital/Flickr
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