300 million people will soon start to see ads in Facebook Stories

300 million people will soon start to see ads in Facebook Stories and Messenger Stories
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Facebook is not doing too badly following a data collection scandal that many expected to harm the brand indefinitely, although the social networking giant’s latest financial report did cause the company’s market value to collapse.

On the bright side, user numbers haven’t stopped growing, including as far as all those Snapchat copycats are concerned. Instagram Stories, which debuted all the way back in August 2016 as a blatant rip-off of the core Snapchat functionality, crossed the 400 million mark a few months ago, and now it’s milestone time for Facebook Stories as well.

More than 300 million people around the world use either Facebook Stories or Messenger Stories every day, which is certainly not as impressive as the latest Instagram Stories achievement, but it still beats Snapchat’s 188 million tally.

That’s right, Facebook has gotten so big that the number of users addicted to a secondary feature of the social media platform is 112 million higher than the total number of daily active Snapchat visitors.

Keep in mind that Facebook Stories saw the light of day roughly seven months after Instagram Stories, with Messenger Stories evolving from an experimental Messenger Day project that started a regional public test run a couple of years ago.

Bottom line, the rapid surge in popularity is undoubtedly impressive albeit far from surprising. Facebook’s imitation games are nothing new, and more often than not, they seem to be very effective in boosting the capabilities of a social networking service that everyone loves to hate but no one appears capable of leaving behind.

Naturally, with great success comes great responsibility exposure to ad revenue, so let’s not act shocked that Facebook Stories are being opened to businesses. Facebook Stories Ads are following last year’s introduction of Instagram Stories ads, with sponsored messages soon to be made available in a “fullscreen, immersive” environment.

Ads for Facebook Messenger Stories are not here yet (thank god), but they’re also in the works (ugh). Then again, no one’s forcing you to check out these 24 hour-only photos and video collections, either from a Facebook friend or an advertiser.