Are Stories Coming to Buzzfeed?

If you’ve read my blog posts, you may have noticed that I reference Buzzfeed, like, a lot. Buzzfeed has my heart, not only because of its off-beat content and humorous take on everyday life, but because it also operates as a reliable news source, and I’m pretty excited about a new change they’re implementing.
It’s official! BuzzFeed has boarded the band wagon alongside Instagram and Snapchat by launching a “story” feature on its mobile app.
Over the past couple of weeks, BuzzFeed has displayed a daily digest of content on its mobile app, similar to the “stories” format made popular originally by Snapchat. At this time, the BuzzFeed stories appear daily at 10 a.m. to only 6 percent of the app’s users. The stories feature GIFs, still images and animations that redirect readers to other Buzzfeed content such as news articles, quizzes and videos. The different content teams that make up BuzzFeed, such as its news, shows, health and travel divisions may soon offer their own original story content as well.
“We’ve really leaned into distribution over the years,” said Andrew Paulus, Buzzfeed’s senior product manager responsible for the new “stories” feature. “But we want the app to be the best place for users to consume the best content.”
By testing a new feature, Buzzfeed has sparked rumors that a complete visual redesign may be in the works.
“If that’s something that happens, it’s a good thing we started on it now,” Paulus said.
According to Apptopia, BuzzFeed has averaged over 500,000 downloads per month across the Apple App Store, and has had an average rank of No. 10 in Apple’s App Store over the last year.