LinkedIn is reportedly shutting down its Stories feature. The announcement was made on Aug. 30, and the company stated that they would remove the feature by the end of September.
The LinkedIn stories were first introduced in February 2020. Snapchat-style video Stories allows users to post pictures and short clips of themselves to appeal to more employers.
LinkedIn Stories to be Discontinued
According to Liz Li, the senior director of product of LinkedIn, one of the reasons they decided to discontinue the feature was that users did not want videos that disappear after 24 hours, according to Windows Central.
Li stated that they thought users would not want any informal videos attached to their profile when they created Stories. They also thought that ephemerality would reduce any barriers that users feel about posting.
However, it turns out that users want to create videos that last longer and those that tell their professional stories in a more personal way because it helps them showcase their personality and their expertise.
LinkedIn's decision to shut down Stories came after Twitter shut down Fleets in July, a feature similar to Snapchat's stories.
Like LinkedIn, Twitter stated that users did not respond well to disappearing videos and did not expect people to prefer lasting videos on their accounts.
Ilya Brown, Twitter's vice president of product, said on a blog that they hoped Fleets would help more people feel better about joining the conversation on the platform, but in the time since they've launched Fleets to the public, they have not seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation as they hoped.
The shutdowns of the two features could mean that there will be a broader pullback from ephemeral video products among social media platforms.
Out of all of them, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat have the most successful ephemeral video feature so far.
The Stories feature may be deemed unsuccessful, LinkedIn's other features like Creator Mode and Video Cover Story were received well by users.
LinkedIn's Clubhouse Clone
Although LinkedIn has given up on Stories, it will still push through with its Clubhouse-like audio feature.
According to TechCrunch, LinkedIn decided to work on an audio networking feature of their own after several social media platforms decided to build a similar feature.
Twitter announced Spaces, Facebook is said to be creating one, Spotify is currently building their own audio feature, and even Slack is jumping on the bandwagon.
The shared audio space feature was first introduced on Clubhouse. It is an exclusive club for invited members to talk to each other about any topic.
LinkedIn stated that they are currently doing some early tests to create a great audio experience for their users that will be connected to their professional identity.
They are also looking for ways on how they can bring audio to other parts of the platform, like groups or events, so that members have more ways to connect with each other.
According to The Verge, LinkedIn will start beta testing soon. Like Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse, the LinkedIn audio feature will have a stage of speakers, showing the list of people included in the audience.
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Written by Sophie Webster
