Is Mark Zuckerberg betting on the wrong horse?

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hi, everyone. It's [Shira](mailto:sovide@bloomberg.net). In this cloudy year for Facebook Inc., it's crystal clear that the company is smashing the gas pedal all the way down for "stories," the short photo-and-video diaries that Snapchat pioneered and Facebook's Instagram copied a couple of years ago. Stories are everywhere now at Facebook. Instagram and Facebook put people's stories at the very top of the apps so people can't help but click on them. On Wednesday, the company [opened its doors wide]( for advertising in the Facebook app's version of the story format. Messenger and WhatsApp have stories, too. The company is trying hard to convince businesses to tailor their marketing pitches for stories, and spread them across Facebook and Instagram. But what if Facebook is wrong to make stories a major priority? What if people tire of the format? They might not work for other Facebook apps beyond Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg is making a big bet on stories, and if he's wrong it won't be good. Story-formatted ads generate less revenue for Facebook than its more established news feed marketing slots, and executives in part blamed the gap for a [predicted slowdown in revenue growth](. Facebook has successful jumped on new trends before -- most famously when Zuckerberg [upended the company's strategy]( to catch the smartphone boom. He could be right about stories, too, which I find fresh and more authentic than regular social media posts. But Facebook has bet wrong before, too. A few years ago, Zuckerberg proclaimed that the future of Facebook was video, and the company [pushed live video]( in a major way. It was hardly a flop, but it hasn't taken over the world, and Facebook stopped [avidly urging people]( to record and broadcast their lives in real time. I hear echoes of Facebook's live video playbook now when the company talks about stories. That should give Facebook watchers a little nervous twinge. On Wednesday, I attended a press conference during which Facebook executives touted rapid adoption of stories by people using Facebook, Instagram and its other apps, and the compelling results that companies were seeing from ads in story form. It was a strong pitch. Facebook said 300 million people see or make a story on Facebook or Messenger every day. The company showed this chart to give a glimpse at the number of story-formatted posts on all of its apps, compared with the number of conventional social network posts like the ones in the news feed. (You perhaps will notice that the Y-axis is not labeled, a misleading trick that I like to call the "Amazon chart" for its [frequent]( [use]( [by]( the [e-commerce]( [giant](. I confirmed, at least, that the Facebook chart is to scale.) A few caveats to those stats. In Facebook's world, 300 million people isn't that many. About 1.5 billion people use Facebook or Messenger each day, and given how avidly Facebook is trying to steer people to stories, I find it underwhelming that 20 percent of those daily users see or make a story. Facebook in July said 400 million people have some interaction with Instagram stories, a more impressive 40 percent or so of Instagram's daily users. I will say that the chart showing an apparently large share of stories as a percentage of total pieces of information posted (as opposed to simply viewed) on Facebook's apps is more compelling. But popularity can -- like the stories themselves -- be ephemeral. There have been some news reports that Snap Inc. has seen [slowing growth]( or worse for [its story format](. It's true that Snapchat is more likely to be used for one-on-one messages with friends rather than the daily diaries of someone's day on the beach or at a sporting event. But Snap's reported story hiccups are a data point that shows the format isn't an unquestioned hit everywhere. And Facebook had similar positive messages about live video a couple of years ago. It stressed the format with advertisers, and told them people were far more likely to watch a commercial message live than pre-recorded. It touted booming usage of live video by Facebook users. In early 2017, Facebook [said]( one in five videos on Facebook was live. You'll notice that's about the same share of Facebook or Messenger users currently watching or making stories. Just because the playbooks are similar doesn't mean that stories will fall off Facebook's priorities list the way live video has. But it is a useful warning. --[Shira Ovide](  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news: In the latest Congressional hearing involving technology companies, some of the giants said they prefer a national law on privacy rather than state-by-state rules. The [devil is in the details](.  Payments startup Stripe now is [valued at $20 billion](.  Brian Acton, one of the founders of WhatsApp, gave [his side of the story]( about why he clashed with the messaging app's owner, Facebook, and how he left money on the table rather than fight over his contract. One Facebook executive called Acton's remarks "[low class](."  Some news organizations and readers are loving Apple News, the anti-Facebook approach to news distribution. But [few are making money from it](.  Facebook announced a [wireless virtual-reality headset]( called Oculus Quest, and said it would go on sale in early 2019 for $399.  Amazon.com Inc.'s [newest physical store]( is a mix of electronics, games and some other items that are top-selling or rated highly on Amazon.com. Here is a [funny tweet]( about it.   Sponsored Content by Coursera Coursera - Are you cloud ready? Cloud computing is becoming the most disruptive force in tech, with $1 trillion in IT spending expected to be affected by the shift to the cloud. Gain the skills you need to get ahead in a cloud-first world with Google Cloud training on Coursera. [Try it today and your first month is free.](   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. 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