I logged on to the Facebook app on my phone the other day to be presented with the above screen.
My first thought was why is there another Snapchat clone by Facebook, but this time within the Facebook app itself. Facebook had launched several versions of a Snapchat clone in the past, including an app back in 2012 called Poke. Poke was terrible and died a quick demise which was very nice to watch as the app was literally an exact copy of Facebook. With the death of Poke Facebook launched another app in 2014 that was just a nicer looking version of it called Slingshot. Slingshot also died very quickly, again because if was terrible. Two years later in 2016, Facebook launched an all-out assault on Snapchat launching Snapchat Story like features, as well as self-deleting messages, funky filters and more in most of their apps including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
In late March 2017, the Story feature was added to the main Facebook app in Australia. It has already been available since January in some countries. A Facebook spokesperson told the technology website TechCrunch “Facebook has long been the place to share with friends and family, but the way that people share is changing in significant ways. The way people share today is different to five or even two years ago — it’s much more visual, with more photos and videos than ever before. We want to make it fast and fun for people to share creative and expressive photos and videos with whoever they want, whenever they want.”
With more and more youth starting to swipe right to Snapchat and left to Facebook, it is understandable to social media juggernaut would want a slice of the Snapchat Story pie. But did it have to literally plagiarise Snapchat’s work six times over!? Why could it not have come up with its own new feature to keep people engaged, instead of ripping off someone else?
Throughout high school and in university I was taught several things. Don’t plagiarise other people’s work. Now as a working journalist, that value is one of extreme importance to me (it’s why I get so annoyed when I see news organisations like the Daily Mail copying stories from other news organisations almost word for word). To see one of the largest and most important companies in the world today plagirise a smaller player in their market, well it’s just very disheartening. This plagiarism though shouldn’t surprise anyone. Facebook has become a giant in the internet world. Mark Zuckerberg has made it perfectly clear in the past he does not want people leaving Facebooks applications. Of course that raises a whole bunch of other questions and issues (relating to freedom of speech, freedom of information, cencorship and more), but they’re for another day.
The reason I won’t be using Facebook stories is plain and simple. It’s the same reason, I believe, why people in my generation and younger generations have begun moving away from the giant in the first place. I’ve got my parents and my parent’s friends as friends on Facebook and it would be incredibly embarrassing if they saw some of the pictures and videos I post on Snapchat stories. I don’t mind the friends and acquaintances I have on Snapchat seeing them, but my personal Facebook account is a large network of friends, relatives, work colleagues, etc. Without any research backing me up, I feel like a lot of young people would feel similar, hence why since I first noticed the Facebook stories late last month, I have only seen one or two people add to it.
Will Facebook’s new story feature take off? Will it finally be Facebook’s silver bullet against Snapchat? Only time will tell.
Additonal sources:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/10/11395428/facebook-copying-snapchat-timeline
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/all-the-times-facebook-copied-snapchat-in-2016-2016-12?r=US&IR=T#/#facebook-is-also-copying-snapchat-with-its-own-geofilters-and-selfie-masks-for-live-video-9
Thanks, great article.
Thank you! 🙂