Facebook Copies Snapchat

Facebook makes quite the habit of copying Snapchat concepts. The idea of imitation being the highest form of flattery might not be such a compliment for Snapchat in the latest turn of events. From the not so successful feature Poke, to Stories on Instagram, and now Messenger Day, the older company has matched its younger competitor feature for feature with nothing new but a name change. Facebook is known for buying up potential rivals but Snapchat was not impressed with the over $3billion offer made by Mark Zuckerberg in 2013 for the company. Snapchat was warned that Facebook also had a clone of its upcoming feature.

The rise of Snapchat appealed to teens because of the Stories features that enabled users to upload videos and images of their day to share with friends and family. This feature was all the rage because of the interesting filters and frames. Nothing of this nature existed in Facebook’s arsenal and the company seemed to have run out of ideas. Since then, Facebook seems to be constantly shopping for new initiatives from Snapchat. In February, another Facebook conglomerate, WhatsApp, which boasts 1.2 users launched Unveiled Status which enables people to share images, videos and more as part of their status update. These updates disappear in twenty-four hours just like the Snapchat feature.
Instagram, yet another Facebook-owned franchise with 600 million users, added a new feature - Debuted Stories which not surprisingly looks similar to the Snapchat Stories feature. This feature is also being tested on Facebook’s main app.
Facebook’s latest cloned feature, Messenger Day, was presented on Thursday on iOS and Android. This feature helps facilitate interaction on Facebook and related apps. It has also made the company level with Snapchat in terms of effective user engagement and interaction. It is entirely thanks to Snapchat that Facebook has now made images and videos central concepts. In fact in November, CEO Zuckerberg reiterated that “we believe a camera will be the main way that we share”. Following this, Facebook is incorporating an idea that puts the camera ‘front and center in its app’ which is of course strikingly similar to Snapchat’s concept.
Mimicking Snapchat’s photo sharing features has increased the appeal of Facebook and its conglomerates but this has taken the wind out of Snapchat’s sails as evident in recent events. The company enjoyed rapid growth from its creation in 2013 till the last part of 2016 when it slowed down. The group opened its shares in the market earlier this year at $24 on March 2. By the end of the day, it was worth $24.48, a remarkable 44% increase from the opening price. Yet, a few days later, Snapchat’s shares had flopped to $22.71.