It seems like every social media platform wants a piece of the Snapchat pie. Instagram following suit with Instagram Stories, and now Facebook have decided to have a go at the whole 24-hour video thing, with Messenger Day.
Launching the test in Poland last week, Messenger Day lets people share filtered photos and videos that, you’ve guessed it, disappear in 24-hours. It’s not the first time Facebook have crossed over into Snapchat’s territory either, Instagram Stories anyone? Facebook own Instagram, so why is they keep on copying and cloning Snapchat’s main video element? Snapchat supposedly isn’t as popular in Poland as it is everywhere else in the world, but that’s not to say they should rip off an idea that’s already been so successful – whatever happened to creating new innovative ideas.
A spokesperson for Facebook told The Verge that: ‘we know people come to Messenger to share everyday moments with friends and family, in Poland we are running a small test of new ways for people to share those updates visually. We have nothing more to announce at this time.’ So while it’s not officially being rolled out everywhere, but there is a chance if it picks up in Poland it could be rolled out elsewhere.
Copying products, and people will always be a thing – high street stores take their inspiration from Gucci, Mui Mui and whatever other hot designer there is each season, most romantic comedies have similar twists and cliffhangers and music is a completely different copy cat ball game. But this notion that social media is transferable in every single form needs to stop. We're a generation of social media obsessives, and giving us the same notion but on a different platform doesn't feed our hunger for all things shiny and new.
Social media updates happen daily, most of them we don’t notice, like algorithms on your Facebook timeline or Twitter updating the word limit, so why is it a team of successful, intelligent techies can’t muster up a new way to help their audiences share? Perhaps it’s all part of a big plan to one-day merge them all together and take over the world – but until then how about we just recognise that Snapchat is great, and addictive, but we instead of just ripping it off, we need to come up with something new.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.