Snapchat's Shared Stories feature threads multiple people into one video

Snapchat Shared Stories Artwork
Snapchat Shared Stories Artwork (Image credit: Snap)

What you need to know

  • Snapchat has announced a new Shared Stories feature.
  • People can invite others to join their Stories and those people can invite their friends, too.

Snapchat has announced Shared Stories, a feature that is designed to allow people to invite other people to add content to their stories. Unlike the previous Custom Stories feature, Shared Stories allow people who have been invited to then invite their own friends, too.

The idea, it seems, is for some sort of Snapchat thread that includes multiple people who don't necessarily know each other. It's like the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for short-form video, if you will.

Shared Stories is a new iteration of Custom Stories, a product that previously allowed Snapchatters to create a Story and add friends to view and contribute. Now, with our new and improved Shared Stories, Snapchatters who've been added to the group can add their friends as well, making it easier for the whole soccer team, camp squad, or group of new coworkers to get in on the fun.

Just like other Snapchat Stories, Shared Stories will disappear after 24 hours but there is no chat component. People will be notified if they join a Shared Story that also features someone they've blocked, too.

The new feature comes as Snapchat continues to battle it out with competition from the likes of Instagram, TikTok, and even YouTube. The short-form video space is a lively one right now and this new collaboration feature could be a feather in the cap for Snapchat. It was already one of the best iPhone apps at what it did, but this addition will surely be welcomed by users.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.