Facebook Stories, a new site created by Facebook, will share inspiring stories happening on the social network while also helping users discover new music to listen to and books to read.
Each month, the site will explore a different theme, the first of which is ‘Remembering’. The central story focuses on Mayank Sharma from New Delhi, India, who lost his memory after contracting tubercular meningitis. Waking up one day to find he couldn’t recall 27 years of his life, Sharma used his connections on Facebook to help piece together the lost information.
Finding Facebook in his computer history, he spotted the ‘People You May Know’ suggestions and began reaching out to possible friends, asking if they knew him and if they could remind him how. Though Sharma’s memory has not returned, the responses have helped him to rebuild his life story.
The site also shares the story of a Facebook Group of more than 400 members from Ontario, Canada who banded together to help save a local building that has been in their town since 1917.
As well as sharing stories from the Facebook community, Facebook Stories also provide users with suggested articles and books to read, and music to listen to, related to the month’s theme. Popular Facebook apps like Goodreads and Spotify are used to curate lists of books and music, while noted publications like The New Yorker will give visitors exclusive access to stories from their archives. There will also be a Facebook Stories podcast put out monthly on iTunes.
Facebook users who have their own stories to share are invited to submit to the site, and they may be the subject matter of the next month’s theme.
