By: Nick Gambino
Snapchat has created a tidal wave of copycats with its popular Stories feature. This includes Instagram, Google and now you can add Airbnb to the growing list.
The new Travel Stories feature in the Airbnb app allows you to select 10 videos that link together to create a sequence or story. The idea is that people would start using the Airbnb app for more than just booking an occasional room here and there.
By adding this feature, the travel app hopes to create a social platform where people can share their experiences and entice others to live it up and travel as well.
To create Travel Stories simply click “Add video” and choose the videos you want included. Because this is part of an overall sequence you won’t be able to choose any video over 10 seconds. Nobody wants to watch a 24-minute story. Those that do are called sociopaths.
Next, you can tag a location, throw captions on it and title the story. Once you’re done hit “preview” to see the whole thing before you share it. Then just hit “Next” to share the sequence right in the app for others to see.
You’ll have to stay in the Airbnb app until it finishes uploading. If you leave prematurely, it’ll pause and won’t resume until you return to the app. This seems to be more of a glitch than an intentional feature, so I’d expect this to change in the near feature.
Airbnb has some tips on what makes for a good story including limiting captions to 1 or 2 sentences, providing tips about the place you’re highlighting and describing the type of trip (family, solo, work, etc.).
Travel Stories are public and available to watch through the site or iOS app and act as a promotion of sorts for the location. TechCrunch has reached out to Airbnb to find out if users are free to post what they want, even if negative, or if their posts will face censorship.
The new feature hasn’t yet rolled out to all users and is currently only available in beta to those who’ve been invited and have an iPhone. But with a shift toward a more social app, I’d expect it to roll out to everyone at some point.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick Gambino is a regular script writer and tech beat reporter for NewsWatch. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.
