San Francisco, Jun 27 (IANS): Telegram Founder and CEO Pavel Durov on Tuesday introduced a new 'Stories' feature and said it will be available in early July.

"For years, our users have been asking us to implement Stories in Telegram. More than half of all feature requests that we receive are related to Stories," Durov posted on his Telegram channel.

Users will be able to choose who can see their stories with granular precision -- Everyone, only their contacts (with exceptions), a few selected contacts or a list of Close Friends.

Users will also be able to hide stories posted by any contact by moving them to the 'Hidden' list in the Contacts section instead of the main screen.

In addition to using photo and video-editing tools, users will be able to provide captions for their stories to add more context or links and tag other people.

"Building on the success of Telegram's Video Messages, we're adding the option to post photos and videos taken by the front and the rear cameras simultaneously," Durov said.

Moreover, users will have the ability to choose when a story expires-- in six, 12, 24, or 48 hours-- or if they want to permanently display stories on the profile page, with individual privacy settings for each.

"Speaking of channels, they will benefit from more exposure and subscribers: once we launch the ability to repost messages from channels to stories, going viral on Telegram will become a lot easier," Durov added.