Barely a month into 2017 and Facebook has continued its Snapchat obsession saga, by introducing a new feature to its main platform.
The social media giant will be hoping that it can finally overhaul the vastly popular photo and video-sharing app in what is a staggering 16th attempt to do so.
To summarise, thus far, Facebook has attempted two acquisitions – one of Snapchat itself and the other of a Chinese firm making Snapchat-esque apps – both of which failed. This is in addition to two clones of the Snapchat Stories feature, four individual apps, five camera lens trials, two disappearing message implementations and a partridge in a pear tree.
Facebook has been attempting to overhaul Snapchat for years, and with each attempt failing, many would think it would have given up by now. However, Snapchat must be something that Facebook bosses value a lot as it must have invested considerable time and money into these projects in a bid to better it.
This latest effort sees the company testing on the main Facebook platform and introducing another Stories-style feature. At present, Facebook is conducting tests in Ireland and this represents the third time the company has attempted to replicate the popular feature first introduced to Snapchat back in 2013.
The latest attempt is an exact clone of the Snapchat feature that allows users to post a photograph of video, edit it with filters, stickers, lenses, text and drawings before displaying it on a storyboard news feed at the top of the page. Each story will last for a certain length of time – usually 24 hours – during which other users can view them. After this time frame, the story disappears forever.
Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram also replicated this feature, by introducing Instagram Stories in August 2016 as part of the overhaul that even saw the platform change its iconic logo.
Furthermore, another Facebook-owned application, messaging service WhatsApp, has also been testing a version of the same Snapchat format called ‘Status’ just before Christmas. This feature has yet to be rolled out to the majority of users and there is no indication as yet as to whether the company plans to permanently introduce the feature.
A spokesman for Facebook did state that the company hopes to bring out its Stories feature to the rest of the world in the next few months once tests in Ireland have been completed.
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