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All the Features Facebook Copied From Snapchat in 2016 (recode.net)

Posted by msmash on from the steal-like-no-one-is-watching dept.

Last year, Facebook looked several times at Snapchat, a company that reportedly refused to be acquired by the social giant, for new features in Facebook Messenger, and its Instagram services. From a report on Recode: Here's the list of features Facebook launched this year that appear to be direct threats to Snapchat:
1. Facebook bought MSQRD, an app that creates silly face filters, in March.
2. It has since added the face filter technology to the main Facebook app and Messenger.
3. Facebook started testing a new Snapchat-style camera inside its main app. Messages sent using the new camera are ephemeral.
4. Facebook built a Snapchat clone app called Flash specifically for emerging markets like Brazil.
5. Instagram ripped off Snapchat's Stories feature. (It actually works pretty well.) Instagram also added ephemeral messaging.

14 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Ephemeral? by roninmagus · · Score: 2

    If you think anything on FB (or any other platform for that matter) is ephemeral then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

  2. Re: Silly face filters need to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, those are awesome. It tells me who I should never associate with.

  3. How will they copy... by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How will they copy being the place where their parents are not?

  4. Why wouldn't they? by Shimbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's easier to pay a few developers than buy a company with a stupid valuation. Who'd have thought it? Shame for Snapchat but that's business.

    1. Re:Why wouldn't they? by pauljlucas · · Score: 2

      That didn't stop Facebook from buying Instagram for 1 billion. It's more to do with Snap not wanting to sell.

      --
      If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  5. Important! by DogDude · · Score: 2

    This is important! What chat app are pre-teen girls going to use for the next few months?!?! Such uncertainty! Such turmoil! How will we survive this?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  6. They didn't copy 3 by allo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Messages sent using the new camera are ephemeral.
    You think, they are ephemeral, because YOU cannot see them anymore.

  7. And snapchat 'ripped off' those before. by queazocotal · · Score: 2

    The notion that any of these ideas is particularly innovative is ridiculous.
    All of the text-based ideas applied to the video world.
    Short messages, time-based messages, messages with silly effects, ... all have been around since at least the 80s.
    The fact you applied an obvious thing to a new technology does not make you specially innovative in any way that deserves protection.

    1. Re:And snapchat 'ripped off' those before. by speedplane · · Score: 2

      The notion that any of these ideas is particularly innovative is ridiculous.

      I'd go further and say that the fact that Facebook copied these feature should surprise no one, and even further, most people should not care. It's hard to get worked up over stealing meaningless technology that makes the world dumber.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
  8. And... by Arkh89 · · Score: 2

    Here's the list of fucks I give :

    1. Re:And... by Thaelon · · Score: 2

      You should because the dominant social networks are all trying to eat each others' user bases and we don't want there to be a clear winner. That's super bad for free speech.

      --

      Question everything

  9. Ephemeral Facebook??? by hyades1 · · Score: 2

    Based on past performance, and current evidence that Facebook has been buying user data from other sources in a very aggressive effort to further "commoditize" users, who would be stupid enough to believe, "messages sent using the new camera are ephemeral"?

    Really...you'd have to be seriously daft to trust Facebook about that.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  10. Re:Silly face filters need to die by ranton · · Score: 2

    Silly face filters need to die

    I on the other hand hope your capacity for childhood whimsy can live again someday. Nearly everything I do with my two year old daughter could be considered childish, unmanly, unproductive, etc by curmudgeons like you, but I am glad not everyone shares your bleak view on what forms of entertainment are acceptable. Watching my daughter laugh as her tongue becomes huge in the phone screen is a damn good use of my time, IMHO, and my family members asking for more snap-chats like that seem to agree.

    I also can get a good laugh at my young sister and brother in law dancing at a New Year's party with silly filters on their faces, so I don't think childish fun only applies to interactions with toddlers either.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  11. Re:Silly face filters need to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't worry he's just suffering from post-partum lobotomy syndrome, where the environmental retardation effects of 'a new family' makes everything his little darling does special and worth sharing. (some say they're just suffering from sleep deprivation) Some breeders suffer from this more than once in their lives even though there no medical reason after the first occurrence. It's just a form of repressed hysteria.