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Am I the only one who, after reading the landing page, still has no idea what this is? I’ve been watching “immersive” websites for quite some time, mostly marke

Am I the only one who, after reading the landing page, still has no idea what this is? I’ve been watching “immersive” websites for quite some time, mostly marketing-ish websites but also sometimes some special purpose pages from National Geografic or NYT. What exactly is this? A JavaScript/CSS framework? Something like AMP? Or is it a social network like Snapchat? I’m genuinely confused what I’m looking at and feel old right now.

pea 6y ago
I came to make the exact same comment - what on earth is this?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mrlala 6y ago
I think they are just trying to make it easy to make a story-like webpage (as you mentioned nat geo or NYT do this at times). However someone with no web experience who just wants to tell a story can't make a complicated site like that. So, it seems like this is just a tool to assist with that. Which is interesting.. however their landing page sure doesn't make it at all clear as to what is going on.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  The key part is that it’s hosted by google, and can appear on other google surfaces. So pretty soon google will just show this at the top of the search results, instead of directing you to the website. At least they’re generous enough to give you some ad revenue from it, unlike featured snippets.
ativzzz 6y ago
Interactive advertisements similar to those that already exist on snapchat/instagram
wisty 6y ago
> What are Stories? > Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular “Stories” format that blend video, audio, images, animation and text to create a dynamic, less formal consumption experience that goes beyond a simple play button. This visual format lets you explore content at your own pace by tapping through it, or swiping from one piece of content to the next. It looks like a format to let Google put small web pages with mixed media into search carousels.
- echelon 6y ago
  Vomit. The web is turning into Entertainment Tonight, the show my mom used to watch. Ads disguised as content.
  - drusepth 6y ago
    >Ads disguised as content. Sure feels like the final evolution of ads will be indistinguishable from content.
    - hyperdimension 6y ago
      Hey, that is contrary to our entire newsroom's ethics and policies. It's called a native, uh, something-or-another, and we promise that we stand behind our journalistic integrity. On an unrelated note, we thank our sponsors and benefactors for bringing us drafts and notes we occasionally might use to augment our impeccable news coverage.
  - lopis 6y ago
    Absolute trash. For most searches these days alternative search engines are proving much more effective to me. Can I just get a simple list of results please??
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Already predicted by Silvester Stallone (Demolition Man).
nvrspyx 6y ago
From what I gather with a cursory look, it's basically making a Snapchat/Instagram/Facebook story under your own domain as an extension of AMP.
- 2sk21 6y ago
  Yes - a blog in other words!
  - pfortuny 6y ago
    Blogger but in the style of tumblr (shortness) but with AMP and nice publicity. Wait five years. It will not be there.
anoncake 6y ago
Based on the description, I think it's like a web page, but you host it yourself, can embed media, link to other web pages, and it can be found using Google.
scoopertrooper 6y ago
The show cases make things slightly more clear. It seems like a framework for creating short vertical-orientated chaptered videos with fancy captions and that play mute by default. Why anyone would want this? I do not know. https://stories.google/showcase/ https://stories.google/showcase/
- rchaud 6y ago
  > Why anyone would want this? I do not know. I would imagine some portion of the 1 billion Instagram users that are familiar with this style of storytelling.
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    I can assure you that it is the children who are wrong.
- marcodave 6y ago
  > Why anyone would want this? I do not know. its product manager at Google, looking for a promotion (and then let it rot)
- netsharc 6y ago
  Tell marketers/SEO experts that stories will be shown prominently on Google search results, and they'll be selling that stuff as "You must have this!" to their clients. I imagine Google's search results will look like Instagram's Explore tab soon enough (https://icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/instagram-stories-explorer-tab-750x1334.jpg https://icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/instagram-stories-expl... ) showing "trending" clips which are mostly video snippets stolen and re-posted to carry ads from the re-poster...
- netsharc 6y ago
  I looked at the money showcase: https://www.refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/ https://www.refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/ So... it's like watching a YouTube video, but every 10 seconds, it jumps back 10 seconds and repeats that 10 seconds, so you have to keep pressing "next [slide]" (at least Instagram/Snapchat progresses seamlessly) God fucking damnit, people...
sktrdie 6y ago
It’s pretty cool. If you make a url return data that is visually aligned with “a story protocol” google will put it at top of relevant search results. Think of it as a mini-html site that follows a specific set of visual JS and CSS protocols so that consumers have guarantee of its behavior (will not have crazy ads, gifs or third party content) and behaves consistently. Kind of interesting avenue for publishing content on the web that isn’t tied to any specific platform. I’d even go further and say the web needs more of these kind of things. All websites behave differently. Maybe we need a visual protocol also for general web apps (just like this web stories) so that we have consistent behavior. I dare to call this protocol Web Apps.
- paxys 6y ago
  > Kind of interesting avenue for publishing content on the web that isn’t tied to any specific platform. Except that the protocol will be designed not for the benefit of the web in general but rather for Google to maximize its ad revenue. I'm all for sites doing new and interesting things, but just like AMP I'm wary when these innovations are being driven by a single company that has monopolistic power over website discoverability and profitability.
- ilamont 6y ago
  > If you make a url return data that is visually aligned with “a story protocol” google will put it at top of relevant search results. Seems like it would be a magnet for low-value SEO content and outright scams.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    It already is. The worst part about this is how google sends you a notification to check new stories they found. You need to disable that.
- ljm 6y ago
  So, another AMP-style thing where Google uses their platform and network effect to further encroach on the open web and turn it into the Google web? The quote you see at first is: "Stories meet their widest audience ever." Given that the widest audience is anyone who wants to search for something, this seems like a massive anti-trust bait. Also, hard-pass on the continual dumbing down of content to contribute to the phenomenal attention deficit modern social media has introduced.
janaagaard 6y ago
Completely agree with this sentiment. Dug slightly deeper and founds this. Stories are part of APM, adding the ability to create the 'stories' pages by conforming to Google's format like including a link to their stories JavaScript. https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/start/visual_story/start_story/?format=stories https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/start/vis...
rchaud 6y ago
This is designed to compete with Instagram/FB/Whatsapp Stories: https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/instagram/138416-what-is-instagram-stories-and-how-does-it-work https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/instagram/138416-what-... Basically mobile-first tappable web pages. Design-wise it's distinct from most web links as they require you to scroll to read. Here you just tap through pages, like you would on an ebook.
ninkendo 6y ago
I’m getting angry just trying to look at the page that describes them. We get it, you figured out how to do clever CSS animations tied to scroll position. Thanks, I hate it. I’ve tried 3 times and I can’t manage to stay on the page for more than a few seconds without getting frustrated and closing the tab.
claydavisss 6y ago
Its like Instagram except no one will use it and it will be gone in a year.
grawprog 6y ago
I clicked the learn section after, like what you said, learning nothing from the landing page. After reading through the learn section, it looks like a clone of facebook or instagram's story feature or whatever that will appear on google search results. At least from the info they've provided. I've always disliked those...it's the one thing on facebook that shows the other person who looks at it at when. Something I've always been secretly terrified facebook does with everything.
- netsharc 6y ago
  > clone of facebook or instagram's story feature Which Zuck blatantly copied from Snapchat. Google's version should be called Gnapchat... And what do we think? Google Graveyard by 2022, or later?
sanderjd 6y ago
This is one of the more humorous threads I've read in awhile. Instagram stories are among the most widely used social media features, and it seems like the majority of commenters here are completely unfamiliar with the format.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  The cognitive dissonance is from Stories being marketed as innovation. HN users are aware of stories (Snapchat has had them since 2013), but since they're not innovative in any way shape or form people aren't making the connection.
- mns 6y ago
  People know what stories are, they make sense on Instagram or other similar platforms, but I have absolutely no clue why everyone needs to make stories now. Linkedin? Youtube? Netflix? And now Google with stories in search? What do they bring in all these cases?
- miked85 6y ago
  > it seems like the majority of commenters here are completely unfamiliar with the format I would be guilty of this. I don't use social media, so this is new to me. It is difficult to see the appeal at first glance.
- saurik 6y ago
  I know what stories are on the other apps... I don't know what this is: it sort of looks like it might be a library I can put on my website to make something that looks like stories, but it also sounds like it is on Google's website? Some people are saying it isn't on the website but is actually on the new tab page of Chrome? I'm seeing people say it involves AMP somehow? Google should have 1) showed the context in which these show up and then 2) showed a snippet of code or metadata or whatever it was that made it work for some particular site, and then I feel like I would have gotten it; instead they threw up some marketing site that fails to answer even basic questions about what they are doing :/.
bromuro 6y ago
At first I thought it was a feature for webmasters to add “stories” or “cards” within the search results. Then I guessed it is a web publishing platform. No idea yet! I came here to read comments about more details.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Something like AMP? “Like AMP”? Well, if you follow the links to get to the dev docs, you land at: https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/?format=stories https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/?format=s... So, yeah, it is very much like AMP.
- lukestevens 6y ago
  Yeah, Google has been trying to make this happen for a while: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/02/amp-stories-bringing-visual.html?m=1 https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/02/amp-stories-bringi...
technaturerun 6y ago
It feels like instagram/facebook-like stories, but searchable on the web. These interactive stories definitely work great as advertisements on Facebook and now Google wants to monetize from them too.
chicob 6y ago
Google stories is a dad trying yet again to look hip. We're not the ones who are old. Google is.
hodgesrm 6y ago
This feels like some kind of satire. Is Sasha Baron Cohen doing a new project?
dessant 6y ago
> Something like AMP? This is literally AMP [1]. The feature was launched as AMP Stories, which has now been rebranded to Web Stories. They are throwing everything at the wall to increase the use of AMP. [1] https://amp.dev/about/stories/ https://amp.dev/about/stories/
- rektide 6y ago
  Riding those "Web" coattails real hard on this one, if I do say so. Seems quite confusing. Facebook, to competes, rebrands as "Web Social Network". The technicians can slice hairs over who deserves it or no, but the distinction would be faint, in comparing similar name-grabbing exercises. Ok, Google, maybe you deserve it a little tiny bit more, maybe a smidge, but hardly.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page. So in some sense it is closer to Snapchat stories. It's basically stories in Chrome?
  - dessant 6y ago
    > This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page. Yes, the point of AMP is for Google to control content distribution on the web, and they entice you to give up control over your content by offering you exposure, for now, just like they did with the Top Stories carousel in Google Search. The irony of Top Stories is that it forced publishers to use AMP in order to regain the search results placement they already had, before Google took it away by pushing down search results to make room for the new carousel that featured AMP pages.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      How are you "giving up control"? Having stuffed published in literally any sort of journal, newspaper or anything has certain formatting and layout requirements. Just because you format it in the "stories" layout doesn't mean you're giving up control over your content. AMP also still properly directs both ads and analytics metrics, and in some cases can be hosted on caches you own, but even if not, having it hosted in a different cache is also not giving up control. At no point in this process are you losing control of your content. If you don't want to participate, then don't. Creators decide to put their content on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and now this is yet another avenue they can put their contents on. How is it any different?
babesh 6y ago
I think they are taking Snap's stories and atomizing it so that they can be placed anywhere on the web. Then they are monetizing it by putting ads over it.
k3liutZu 6y ago
> I’m genuinely confused what I’m looking at and feel old right now. Another "social" attempt from Google. Anyone remember Google+?
- roselan 6y ago
  google++ That's what popped in my mind when the title ("Stories meet their widest audience ever").
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I also remember Google Wave.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Could be worse, you could remember Google Buzz.
ezconnect 6y ago
A slide show

pea 6y ago

I came to make the exact same comment - what on earth is this?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mrlala 6y ago

I think they are just trying to make it easy to make a story-like webpage (as you mentioned nat geo or NYT do this at times). However someone with no web experience who just wants to tell a story can't make a complicated site like that. So, it seems like this is just a tool to assist with that. Which is interesting.. however their landing page sure doesn't make it at all clear as to what is going on.

jtsiskin 6y ago
The key part is that it’s hosted by google, and can appear on other google surfaces. So pretty soon google will just show this at the top of the search results, instead of directing you to the website. At least they’re generous enough to give you some ad revenue from it, unlike featured snippets.

ativzzz 6y ago

Interactive advertisements similar to those that already exist on snapchat/instagram

wisty 6y ago

> What are Stories? > Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular “Stories” format that blend video, audio, images, animation and text to create a dynamic, less formal consumption experience that goes beyond a simple play button. This visual format lets you explore content at your own pace by tapping through it, or swiping from one piece of content to the next. It looks like a format to let Google put small web pages with mixed media into search carousels.

echelon 6y ago
Vomit. The web is turning into Entertainment Tonight, the show my mom used to watch. Ads disguised as content.
- drusepth 6y ago
  >Ads disguised as content. Sure feels like the final evolution of ads will be indistinguishable from content.
  - hyperdimension 6y ago
    Hey, that is contrary to our entire newsroom's ethics and policies. It's called a native, uh, something-or-another, and we promise that we stand behind our journalistic integrity. On an unrelated note, we thank our sponsors and benefactors for bringing us drafts and notes we occasionally might use to augment our impeccable news coverage.
- lopis 6y ago
  Absolute trash. For most searches these days alternative search engines are proving much more effective to me. Can I just get a simple list of results please??
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Already predicted by Silvester Stallone (Demolition Man).

nvrspyx 6y ago

From what I gather with a cursory look, it's basically making a Snapchat/Instagram/Facebook story under your own domain as an extension of AMP.

2sk21 6y ago
Yes - a blog in other words!
- pfortuny 6y ago
  Blogger but in the style of tumblr (shortness) but with AMP and nice publicity. Wait five years. It will not be there.

anoncake 6y ago

Based on the description, I think it's like a web page, but you host it yourself, can embed media, link to other web pages, and it can be found using Google.

scoopertrooper 6y ago

The show cases make things slightly more clear. It seems like a framework for creating short vertical-orientated chaptered videos with fancy captions and that play mute by default. Why anyone would want this? I do not know. https://stories.google/showcase/ https://stories.google/showcase/

rchaud 6y ago
> Why anyone would want this? I do not know. I would imagine some portion of the 1 billion Instagram users that are familiar with this style of storytelling.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  I can assure you that it is the children who are wrong.
marcodave 6y ago
> Why anyone would want this? I do not know. its product manager at Google, looking for a promotion (and then let it rot)
netsharc 6y ago
Tell marketers/SEO experts that stories will be shown prominently on Google search results, and they'll be selling that stuff as "You must have this!" to their clients. I imagine Google's search results will look like Instagram's Explore tab soon enough (https://icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/instagram-stories-explorer-tab-750x1334.jpg https://icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/instagram-stories-expl... ) showing "trending" clips which are mostly video snippets stolen and re-posted to carry ads from the re-poster...
netsharc 6y ago
I looked at the money showcase: https://www.refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/ https://www.refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/ So... it's like watching a YouTube video, but every 10 seconds, it jumps back 10 seconds and repeats that 10 seconds, so you have to keep pressing "next [slide]" (at least Instagram/Snapchat progresses seamlessly) God fucking damnit, people...

sktrdie 6y ago

It’s pretty cool. If you make a url return data that is visually aligned with “a story protocol” google will put it at top of relevant search results. Think of it as a mini-html site that follows a specific set of visual JS and CSS protocols so that consumers have guarantee of its behavior (will not have crazy ads, gifs or third party content) and behaves consistently. Kind of interesting avenue for publishing content on the web that isn’t tied to any specific platform. I’d even go further and say the web needs more of these kind of things. All websites behave differently. Maybe we need a visual protocol also for general web apps (just like this web stories) so that we have consistent behavior. I dare to call this protocol Web Apps.

paxys 6y ago
> Kind of interesting avenue for publishing content on the web that isn’t tied to any specific platform. Except that the protocol will be designed not for the benefit of the web in general but rather for Google to maximize its ad revenue. I'm all for sites doing new and interesting things, but just like AMP I'm wary when these innovations are being driven by a single company that has monopolistic power over website discoverability and profitability.
ilamont 6y ago
> If you make a url return data that is visually aligned with “a story protocol” google will put it at top of relevant search results. Seems like it would be a magnet for low-value SEO content and outright scams.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  It already is. The worst part about this is how google sends you a notification to check new stories they found. You need to disable that.
ljm 6y ago
So, another AMP-style thing where Google uses their platform and network effect to further encroach on the open web and turn it into the Google web? The quote you see at first is: "Stories meet their widest audience ever." Given that the widest audience is anyone who wants to search for something, this seems like a massive anti-trust bait. Also, hard-pass on the continual dumbing down of content to contribute to the phenomenal attention deficit modern social media has introduced.

janaagaard 6y ago

Completely agree with this sentiment. Dug slightly deeper and founds this. Stories are part of APM, adding the ability to create the 'stories' pages by conforming to Google's format like including a link to their stories JavaScript. https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/start/visual_story/start_story/?format=stories https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/start/vis...

rchaud 6y ago

This is designed to compete with Instagram/FB/Whatsapp Stories: https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/instagram/138416-what-is-instagram-stories-and-how-does-it-work https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/instagram/138416-what-... Basically mobile-first tappable web pages. Design-wise it's distinct from most web links as they require you to scroll to read. Here you just tap through pages, like you would on an ebook.

ninkendo 6y ago

I’m getting angry just trying to look at the page that describes them. We get it, you figured out how to do clever CSS animations tied to scroll position. Thanks, I hate it. I’ve tried 3 times and I can’t manage to stay on the page for more than a few seconds without getting frustrated and closing the tab.

claydavisss 6y ago

Its like Instagram except no one will use it and it will be gone in a year.

grawprog 6y ago

I clicked the learn section after, like what you said, learning nothing from the landing page. After reading through the learn section, it looks like a clone of facebook or instagram's story feature or whatever that will appear on google search results. At least from the info they've provided. I've always disliked those...it's the one thing on facebook that shows the other person who looks at it at when. Something I've always been secretly terrified facebook does with everything.

netsharc 6y ago
> clone of facebook or instagram's story feature Which Zuck blatantly copied from Snapchat. Google's version should be called Gnapchat... And what do we think? Google Graveyard by 2022, or later?

sanderjd 6y ago

This is one of the more humorous threads I've read in awhile. Instagram stories are among the most widely used social media features, and it seems like the majority of commenters here are completely unfamiliar with the format.

tmpz22 6y ago
The cognitive dissonance is from Stories being marketed as innovation. HN users are aware of stories (Snapchat has had them since 2013), but since they're not innovative in any way shape or form people aren't making the connection.
mns 6y ago
People know what stories are, they make sense on Instagram or other similar platforms, but I have absolutely no clue why everyone needs to make stories now. Linkedin? Youtube? Netflix? And now Google with stories in search? What do they bring in all these cases?
miked85 6y ago
> it seems like the majority of commenters here are completely unfamiliar with the format I would be guilty of this. I don't use social media, so this is new to me. It is difficult to see the appeal at first glance.
saurik 6y ago
I know what stories are on the other apps... I don't know what this is: it sort of looks like it might be a library I can put on my website to make something that looks like stories, but it also sounds like it is on Google's website? Some people are saying it isn't on the website but is actually on the new tab page of Chrome? I'm seeing people say it involves AMP somehow? Google should have 1) showed the context in which these show up and then 2) showed a snippet of code or metadata or whatever it was that made it work for some particular site, and then I feel like I would have gotten it; instead they threw up some marketing site that fails to answer even basic questions about what they are doing :/.

bromuro 6y ago

At first I thought it was a feature for webmasters to add “stories” or “cards” within the search results. Then I guessed it is a web publishing platform. No idea yet! I came here to read comments about more details.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Something like AMP? “Like AMP”? Well, if you follow the links to get to the dev docs, you land at: https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/?format=stories https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/?format=s... So, yeah, it is very much like AMP.

lukestevens 6y ago
Yeah, Google has been trying to make this happen for a while: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/02/amp-stories-bringing-visual.html?m=1 https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/02/amp-stories-bringi...

technaturerun 6y ago

It feels like instagram/facebook-like stories, but searchable on the web. These interactive stories definitely work great as advertisements on Facebook and now Google wants to monetize from them too.

chicob 6y ago

Google stories is a dad trying yet again to look hip. We're not the ones who are old. Google is.

hodgesrm 6y ago

This feels like some kind of satire. Is Sasha Baron Cohen doing a new project?

dessant 6y ago

> Something like AMP? This is literally AMP [1]. The feature was launched as AMP Stories, which has now been rebranded to Web Stories. They are throwing everything at the wall to increase the use of AMP. [1] https://amp.dev/about/stories/ https://amp.dev/about/stories/

rektide 6y ago
Riding those "Web" coattails real hard on this one, if I do say so. Seems quite confusing. Facebook, to competes, rebrands as "Web Social Network". The technicians can slice hairs over who deserves it or no, but the distinction would be faint, in comparing similar name-grabbing exercises. Ok, Google, maybe you deserve it a little tiny bit more, maybe a smidge, but hardly.
ehsankia 6y ago
This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page. So in some sense it is closer to Snapchat stories. It's basically stories in Chrome?
- dessant 6y ago
  > This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page. Yes, the point of AMP is for Google to control content distribution on the web, and they entice you to give up control over your content by offering you exposure, for now, just like they did with the Top Stories carousel in Google Search. The irony of Top Stories is that it forced publishers to use AMP in order to regain the search results placement they already had, before Google took it away by pushing down search results to make room for the new carousel that featured AMP pages.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    How are you "giving up control"? Having stuffed published in literally any sort of journal, newspaper or anything has certain formatting and layout requirements. Just because you format it in the "stories" layout doesn't mean you're giving up control over your content. AMP also still properly directs both ads and analytics metrics, and in some cases can be hosted on caches you own, but even if not, having it hosted in a different cache is also not giving up control. At no point in this process are you losing control of your content. If you don't want to participate, then don't. Creators decide to put their content on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and now this is yet another avenue they can put their contents on. How is it any different?

babesh 6y ago

I think they are taking Snap's stories and atomizing it so that they can be placed anywhere on the web. Then they are monetizing it by putting ads over it.

k3liutZu 6y ago

> I’m genuinely confused what I’m looking at and feel old right now. Another "social" attempt from Google. Anyone remember Google+?

roselan 6y ago
google++ That's what popped in my mind when the title ("Stories meet their widest audience ever").
rorykoehler 6y ago
I also remember Google Wave.
robin_reala 6y ago
Could be worse, you could remember Google Buzz.

ezconnect 6y ago

A slide show