Facebook after disappearing messages yet again: A quick look at 5 features borrowed from Snapchat

Facebook has been pursuing Snapchat like a love interest for years now. There’s something about the ephemeral app (hint: the disappearing act) that the social media giant can’t resist. In the past, the company has tried and re-tried every trick in the box to either build or acquire the app, but Snapchat stays unaffected and uncharmed by the biggest social network.  Here’s a list of the instances when Facebook borrowed features from Snapchat.

Poke

Poke was what we can call Facebook’s first attempt at bringing a feature akin Snapchat. It was within a year of Snapchat’s launch that Facebook decided how the ephemeral feature would woo its audiences, which was still larger than Snapchat. It essentially allowed Facebook users to ‘poke’ each other by sending ‘pokes’ (the only part of the feature most remember), images, videos and messages, which would last from anywhere between one second to 10 seconds. However, Poke didn’t really take off and was striked out by Facebook soon. It was soon after this that Facebook decided to acquire Snapchat for reported $1 - $3 billion.

Slingshot

After a failed attempt at Poke and also at acquiring Snapchat, the company decided to build its own standalone app. After a string of leaks, the Snapchat-competitor Slingshot was out that let you share messages that would disappear in sometime, and it let you do so without requiring Facebook accounts. It allowed users to sign up for the service with their mobile phone number and connect with friends in their phone’s contact list or, if they wanted, by finding their Facebook friends. Photos on Slingshot disappear from users’ phones shortly after they are viewed, reflecting a growing anxiety about privacy in the age of Internet social networking. But looks like the younger audiences were still hooked to Snapchat.

There was a growing fear over Facebook losing younger users and the failed Slingshot app only made matters worse. The company continued to pilot or test features across the world to replicate Snapchat-like app. It soon started a new pilot testing that allowed setting up expiry dates on messages, photos and videos, as told to TheNextWeb . But the feature never made it to the rest of the regions.

Scannable codes

Recently, the company has even borrowed a feature similar to snapcodes. Afterall, Facebook’s leading the way when it comes to chatbots with the aim to become a platform to help businesses connect with customers. So, in case users want to start chatting with a customer service account/businesses, they just have to scan the code to get started.the feature is still rolling out in phases.

Our Story-like feature

Last year Facebook’s Instagram added a new feature that is aimed at sprucing up the experience around big events and moments. The idea was to create Instagram content around a particular event and help make it easily searchable. Sound familiar? Yes, this is something Snapchat did a year ago by introducing Our Story . It started testing the feature with events like Electric Daisy Carnival dance and music festival and also FIFA World Cup, and Facebook’s Instagram decided to start with the most sociable festival Halloween. Facebook is also known to have borrowed some image editing tools for Instagram from Snapchat.

Disappearing messages on FB Messenger

https://twitter.com/iOSAppChanges/status/726803477922504704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Facebook had tested disappearing messages last year, something the company is known to be testing even right now . After the test run in France , the feature wasn’t rolled out to other regions. Not much is known about if or when the company will finally roll out the feature.