This year, Telegram celebrates its tenth anniversary, sparking speculation about its potential shift from a messaging network to a dominant social media platform.
Telegram already offers social networking features, including story posting, large public groups with up to 200,000 members, and channels for sharing updates with unlimited audiences.
In August, Telegram introduced several new features to enhance user interaction. Users can now post stories on channels, react with stickers, and add their own music. Additionally, the platform has introduced a View Once option for media and improved login alerts.
Users can grant access to their channels for story posting by offering boosts. Telegram now allows users and channels to include reaction stickers in their stories. Premium subscribers can even use custom emojis for reactions.
Another feature borrowed from WhatsApp and Instagram is the option to send disappearing media, which can last up to 30 seconds with a ‘View Once’ setting.
While it’s still early, the combination of these new features and the limitations of other platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), suggest that Telegram MAY evolve from a messaging network into a social media platform.
The first thing that we wanted to make clear is that nobody has to trust anybody. We don’t take people’s trust for Telegram for granted.
Pavel Durov – Founder/CEO at Telegram