The new version of its messaging application displays the same ergonomics and tools as Snapchat's. After reigning ten years on the Web, the social network is in the position of the follower - thus taking the risk to damage its e-reputation.
For ten years, Facebook has shaped and greatly influenced both the Web and mobile applications. With its infinite flow of information, user and brand profiles, "likes", sharing and commenting, and targeted advertising, Mark Zuckerberg's company has imposed its own style and codes. Led by these innovations, Google has been reduced to offering a lukewarm copy of the social network, Google+.
This period of moral authority on the Web is over. Thursday, Facebook has offered an update to its messaging application, Messenger, which blatantly copies the principles and ergonomics of Snapchat. Users of the application will be able to easily send photos, add filters and creative visuals. Everything, even in the placement of the buttons, is borrowed from his rival.
Messenger application's new visuals
The update of Messenger illustrates the change of era that has taken place in recent months. Now it's not Facebook that sets the tone, but Snapchat. The application has innovated by giving a central place to the camera, offering to create stories for one to tell his day or to share ephemeral contents. It also enlisted media, which create exclusive content on its platform ("Discover"). It finally surprised its competitors by launching a pair of connected glasses, the "Spectacles".
The success of Snapchat, especially among the young, has obsessed Facebook since the company's first days. Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy the company from Evan Spiegel, then launched several competing applications. This year, he put in place another strategy, injecting the functions of Snapchat into its most popular services. Even if it changes completely their use on a larger scale.
Teens favorite social networks between 2012 and 2015
Source (6)
Before Messenger, Instagram had already undergone this face-lift. Users of the picture application can now share stories and draw on their pictures. These developments are an undeniable success. Instagram has just passed the 600 million active users, twice more than at the end of 2014. Facebook has started tests of "stories" in WhatsApp and is working on a system close to Discover for its social network.
Instagram has already copied some of Snapchat's functions
Such initiative to copy one's competitor is nothing new on the digital market. It is actually the batch of technology giants. They do, however, put Facebook in a follower position, which was not its own until then. The company, and its excellent managers, prefer to adopt trends at the right time, as with live video, and make the difference by mutating hundreds of millions of people at the same time on these services. Nevertheless, its most noticeable recent products are either bought competitors (WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus) or copies.
Others have taken this path before Facebook. In the late 1990's, before being confronted by Facebook, Google imposed its technological choices and its ergonomics in search engines, in e-mail services and in advertising. To continue to feed its own legend and not to appear as a boring salesperson, the company formed another company within it, Google X, tasked with working on crazy projects, such as stand-alone and connected cars.
Microsoft, which has erected the copy as a principle of the company, has known the same phenomenon, close to asphyxia. Its recent growth coincides with the success of certain bets, notably the surface tablet and its removable keyboard, whose idea was taken again on the Apple iPad Pro. Microsoft has also demonstrated interesting advances with "HoloLens" augmented reality headphones, which earned the company a concert of praise.
Technological groups cannot afford to appear too long as trend followers. Those who impose their style are also those who recruit the best talents and find themselves constantly irrigated with new ideas. Is it flourishing to redevelop, without great imagination, functions invented several months ago in Snapchat's development department? The Mark Zuckerberg who launched Facebook ten years ago surely knows the answer.
References:
(2)https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-copies-snapchat-feature-for-15th-time
Hanna Hotsyk & Dorian Vincileoni
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