![]() Why would an app make itself almost unusably overstuffed? Because for all of Facebook’s problems, it knows that people won’t leave it, since that would also mean cutting off a primary means of contact with their social circles. When Facebook introduced a Stories feature to its main app a few weeks ago, it was clear that the social network was taking a kitchen-sink approach - introducing to its app as many features and doodads as possible. It’s just on the app that everyone else is already on. For a long time, that edge was Stories, a fresh and interesting type of social-media post.īut if Stories is on Instagram - where you’re likely already following, and being followed by, your entire social circle - what can Snapchat really offer? Instagram’s Stories product isn’t different that Snapchat’s, or an improvement on it. ![]() This less comprehensive social graph means that Snapchat needs a real competitive edge to bring people over to its app. Snapchat isn’t as big as Facebook - which means it not only has fewer users, but that those users are less likely to have their entire social circles on the app. ![]() And as yesterday’s numbers show, it’s working. Rather than taking third-party apps built to run on its platform and making their features native, it’s taking a defining feature from a direct, smaller competitor, and putting all of its social-graph muscle behind it. Millions of people already used Apple’s OS, were captive to updates, and were inclined to take the most frictionless road to functionality with Sherlock, not only could Apple introduce new search features to the millions who would never have seen Watson otherwise, but it could also entice Watson users away by making Sherlock identical in features and easier to use.įacebook introducing Stories to Instagram (and its other apps) isn’t Sherlocking - in fact, in some ways, it’s worse. Sherlocking works because the larger company has access to the platform itself. The company most famous for this behavior is Apple, which once updated its Sherlock search bar to copy a feature from a third-party app called “Watson,” obviating Watson, and giving rise to the term “Sherlocking.” (Apple is still up to this: Its new screen-dimming feature Night Shift is just a version of a popular app called f.lux.) There’s a long, not-so-proud history in the tech industry of larger companies enfolding smart features and ideas from smaller ones into their platforms, often killing small businesses in a single move. This is obviously terrifying to Snapchat - but users should be terrified, too. The second is, Facebook is completely unafraid of leveraging its enormous social graph to make use of its competitors’ innovations and choke those competitors out. Instagram’s Stories are successful, in part, because you didn’t need to build an entire new friends list. The first is, more than any single product or feature, the social graph (friends, family, and the links between every part of your social circle) that most networks maintain is their single most important asset. That Instagram Stories are already seeing more users than Snapchat confirms a couple of assertions. In the span of less than a year, Instagram managed to rip off Snapchat’s defining feature, and then surpass it. ![]() Except, as of its IPO earlier this year, Snapchat boasts only 161 million daily active users. If that sounds familiar, it should: Like Stories, “pinned” stickers that move along with video are a Snapchat feature that Facebook has recycled for its own social network.Ī bad sign for Facebook, right? A formerly pacesetting business must be out of ideas if it’s just copying ideas from a newer and more creative competitor. To celebrate, Facebook introduced a new feature - stickers that users can “place” on objects in a video to track the video’s movements. But even a stingy estimation of Instagram’s figures means that a group of people about the size of the population of Pakistan is either posting Stories to Instagram, or checking out their friends’ Stories every day. “New,” of course, is relative: The disappearing-video format, which has redefined social media, was invented and pioneered by Snapchat, before being shamelessly ripped off by Instagram. Facebook announced yesterday that its newest Instagram feature, Stories, has surpassed 200 million daily active users.
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