Facebook merges Stories and Messenger Day

Facebook has announced a number of changes for its Stories feature. According to TechCrunch, the company is merging Facebook Stories and Messenger Day — the two formats that existed separately until now.

This means that when you post a Story on Facebook it will automatically show in Messenger as well — and vice versa. Viewing will also be synced, so if you check out a Story in one app it will be marked as viewed in the other.

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Stories on Facebook haven’t been as popular as those on other platforms. For example, the company said that Messenger Day had 70 million daily active users in September, which is 230 million less than Instagram Stories. Facebook is now simplifying its stories offering in hopes of increasing the number of users and giving posts more exposure. Merging the two formats is a great move, as you don’t have to post the same story twice anymore.

Facebook has also announced that it’s launching collaborative Stories for Groups and Events. The new feature allows users to collectively contribute to a Facebook Story for an event like a birthday party, wedding, meetup, etc.

The company is also bringing Stories to its data-friendly Lite version of the app that’s aimed at emerging markets. Users will initially only be able to view Stories, but will also have the chance to post them in the near future — a specific date has not been announced yet.

Additionally, Facebook is killing the private ephemeral messaging feature Direct and will route all replies to Stories and Facebook Camera messages through Messenger from now on.