In a move that somewhat contradicts the recent and completely unconfirmed reports that speculated that the days of Google+ could be numbered, Google has today announced a brand new “Stories” tool for the service that will come in extremely useful for anyone who uses it to host their photos and videos.
Essentially, Stories takes the photos and videos you have uploaded to Google+ and automatically turns them into extremely impressive looking interactive travelogues – complete with location data, and in chronological order. So, instead of you needing to sort through countless images and video clips, and then spend time trying to turn them into a presentation – Stories does it all for you.
The best way to get an idea of what the new tool is capable of is to take a look at this example story from Google’s Director of Product Management, Anil Sabharwal:
Stories will be available to use on the web and Android versions of Google+ later this week, but iOS users will have to wait a little longer – with Google simply saying that it will be “coming soon”. Once the feature has rolled out, you will receive a notification when a story has been created from your uploaded photos and videos.
In addition to the new Stories tool, Google has also announced that Auto Awesome Movies are now available on Android, iOS and the web – allowing more users to view and share automatically created highlight reels from their photos and videos.
Let us know what you think of the new Stories tool by leaving a comment below, via your preferred social network, or over on our forums.