About a month ago, Facebook launched Facebook Stories to mark the addition of Facebook’s 500 millionth user.

Now Twitter is launching Twitter Tales, which the microblogging site describes as “a growing set of articles that highlights creative individuals and businesses from all corners of the world that help make Twitter awesome,” adding that Twitter expects that “the examples of great Twitter use will also likely inspire others to use the service in innovative and interesting ways.”

When I learned of Twitter Tales, I groaned, thinking these stories would be limited to 140 characters. But Twitter and Facebook seem to be playing a role reversal in their launches of stories and tales. Where Facebook Stories are limited to 420 characters, Twitter Tales are detailed narratives several paragraphs in length. Where Facebook Stories are stark text blocks, Twitter Tales are presented in a graphically attractive layout with sidebars and images.

For the next several weeks, Twitter plans to offer a new story to the Twitter Tales homepage that users can access by clicking on the Twitter Tales icon on the sidebar of the Twitter Blog.

The first three entries focus on:

• Life: @natashabadhwar is a mother/filmmaker/photographer/writer from New Delhi who sees Twitter as a form of self therapy
• Community: @caltrain is a crowd-sourced Twitter account where people can help others avoid pitfalls on their daily commute
• Humor: @thebloggess provides a witty and honest behind the scenes look into her blog writing

I continue to find it significant that these social-media giants are deploying stories to engage users.

Update (Aug. 20, 2010): Didn’t realize that Google also has stories.