Facebook is unveiling a feature resembling Snapchat's Stories, directly within the Facebook application. The company also announced three updates to Trending, a feature that shows people popular topics being discussed on Facebook.

Snapchat Stories are short annotated videos and photos that people post to their entire audience, viewable for 24 hours only.

Facebook's adoption means the tool will be exposed to a global audience of 1.8 billion people, including many who haven't yet been introduced to Snapchat.

Facebook, which is now testing the stories tool in Ireland and plans to roll it out more widely.

Updates to Trending

Facebook is updating Trending:

• Trending topics will now feature a publisher headline below each topic name
• An improved system to determine what is trending
• Everyone in the same region will see the same topics

These changes begin rolling out today and will be available to everyone in the US in the coming weeks.

Previously, topics may have trended due to high engagement on Facebook around a single post or article. With today's update, Facebook will now look at the number of publishers that are posting articles on Facebook about the same topic, and the engagement around that group of articles.