How Many Snapchat Clones Does It Take For Facebook To Lose Its Self-Respect? (theguardian.com) 62
Alex Hern, writing for The Guardian: Over the past year, Facebook has shown an almost monomaniacal dedication to taking on Snapchat by importing its defining features wholesale into the company's own apps. Facebook Live has "masks" now (think Snapchat's Lenses). Instagram has geostickers (like Snapchat's location-aware stickers.) WhatsApp has "Status" (think Snapchat Stories). Instagram has "Stories" (think ... Snapchat stories). The latest fruit of Facebook's labours is Messenger Day -- "a way for you to share these photos and videos -- as they happen -- by adding to your Messenger Day, where many of your friends can view and reply to them". It's Snapchat Stories. Again. [...] Facebook has seen potential threats on the horizon before, but its chequebook has always been enough to ward off real danger: that's why it bought Instagram, that's why it bought WhatsApp, and that's why it tried to buy Snapchat. But it couldn't get the company's fiercely independent co-founder, Evan Spiegel, to sell. And now it's in uncharted waters, with a competitor stealing advertising revenue, desirable millennial users, and industry credibility, and with no obvious way to reverse that trend. Facebook's time at the top probably isn't up. But its self-respect deficit is going to take years to pay off.
Why the fuck are you buying Snap, Inc? (Score:2)
Snap has filters and disappearing texts. Other than ads, there is no user or product data to mine unless they are breaking their own rules. The product is easily cloneable by Facebook, goliath of Internet with it's brethren of Google, Microsoft and others. Reminds me of... Groupon?
As described by a coworker: "Snap is the Uber of Twitter."
at least Twitter has data to mine, the product is still you... even with a character limit.
Facebook is big enough to get the Goliath media attack. Looks really like a Snap
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Cloning only makes sense if you can actually entice users to switch. But perhaps those users like Snapchat because it's lightweight and it's not Facebook.
Users (Score:2)
Yes, currently snapchat doesn't have much to monetize (at least not if they respect their promised privacy and ephemeral pictures).
BUT snapchat has still something valuable: it has *USERS*.
Facebook might have tons of them, but they are mostly users who stayed around from before.
First there was Geocities, then there was MySpace, then there was Facebook... Zuckerberg knows the trend, he knows that Facebook isn't going to last forever.
That's why he's been keeping an eye open on the social network market, in or
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As described by a coworker: "Snap is the Uber of Twitter."
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
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The product is easily cloneable...
Sure, but just like Apple, Nike, or Coca Cola, once you have established yourself as the 'it' brand, the brand becomes more important than the product.
I'm not a big user, I only use it to communicate with my kids. And for the teenagers these days, FB is what their parents use and Snapchat is their thing. And as we all know, as a teenager, once something has been established as your' parent's thing', there is no coming back from that.
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Because people are stupid and fall again to a money laundering scheme pushed by the big investment banks from Wall Street. Opel just sold for $1.5 billion how the fuck can you evaluate an image filter to 16x that value. It is insane.
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We need more apps! (Score:1)
Apps!
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Obnoxious, but ultimately makes a point I nod my head to.
Moo you luddite cows, moo!
Self respect? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So... I ragequit social media. All of it. People who are important to me have my phone number. They can call or text.
I don't really understand this. I've seen several friends go through cycles of this, where they quit some network, delete everything, and then (usually) end up coming back a few months later, and having to rebuild all those connections.
Why not just stop actively participating? Remove the apps from your phone, update your settings to limit/disable the flood of notifications, and just let it be. You can update your social network page (whatever one you're mad at for the moment) with a note that friends should
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People who ragequit social media and delete everything are usually doing it for attention. Quietly not posting anymore doesn't attract attention; that's why they don't just do that.
If someone genuinely just loses interest in a platform and isn't after attention (whether it be positive or negative) will just stop using that platform quietly. That's kind of what happened with me and Livejournal.
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The secret is not to donate content for free. Do not ever post content or even worse articles on the social accounts. Use the social accounts just to point to the real content that if is possible is self hosted. Social media are so big because people do not know the value of content. 20 years ago that was the whole idea of the Internet to share your content, until someone found a way to scam people and made them sell their content for free.
News for nerds, stuff that matters (Score:2)
Because features are bad for some reason? (Score:1)
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moogle cagoogle doogie doogie wobbla bo.
Re: Because features are bad for some reason? (Score:1)
And the decisions you pointed out aren't the only decisions those brands made, so it isn't clear what other decisions they did and did not make effected things.
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Only one piece of software is allowed to have a given feature.
No it's not that, it's that facebook is engaging in a bunch of desperate and shameless catch up which kinda looks like scrabbling after they failed top buy snapchat. Now, facebook is going to remain an 800lb gorilla and, well, I've no idea if snapchat will succeed or fail: I don't get social media and that renders me unable to make any kind of informed prediction about it (when I heard of instagram, I figured I could already do most of that on m
Does anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think the average teenager or soccer mom who uses these features actually cares who invented what first? They are not reading these stories, they are not concerned with abstract hand-wringing. They just care if the platform they use does that cute little trick where they can overlay a cat nose on their face in realtime. Facebook knows this. They are appropriately more concerned with their bottom line than with the opinion of tech journalists. I just don't see the point. Competitors in every industry copy each other and try to one-up each other. that's the whole point. If you feel you are losing ground to X competitor because they rolled out Y new feature, you're going to also roll out Y new feature and hopefully add Z innovation on top of it, and X competitor may copy Z new innovation back in return. Why single out the feature arms race of social media?
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Do you think the average teenager or soccer mom who uses these features actually cares who invented what first?
Nope, but for teenagers they do care if 'product A' is their parents thing, and 'product B' isn't.
Teenagers like to be different, rebel, and find their own style, Facebook isn't that, so no matter how hard FB tries, they are already tarnished by the fact all their parents use it, therefore it cannot be cool.
Companies Don't Care About Self Respect (Score:2)
A more interesting article is this one Tech's Ruling Class Casts a Big Shadow [slashdot.org]. If Facebook had done this while Snapchat was still a new startup - would Snapchat see any of the success it currently does?
They aren't really throwing money at the problem (Score:2)
Unless FB went on a hiring spree, they are probably just rerouting permanent workers that they hired long ago for their core features into these. And since Facebook has pretty much no competition on their core business segment itself, neglecting core features right now and for the past 2-3 years has probably taken no hit at all. They chose the best out of 2 options, and the one that makes their talent happier: They kept personnel on the pay-role by implementing a competing strategy, and kept handing out nor
Lose whatnow? (Score:2)
We're talking about a corporation here. Self-respect is a concept that's for real people, not for fake ones.
A corporation would shit on itself, put a cherry on top and call it chocolate cake if someone paid it for doing so.
I think the real question is... (Score:2)
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Yeah... Instagram was doing cheesy picture filters long before Snapchat existed. I think that the only real "innovation" that Snapchat has offered was messages that self-destructed. Everything else was ripped off from several different IM products, including Facebook's products like Whatsapp and Messenger.
Can someone explain Snapchat to this old fart? (Score:2)
I played with Snapchat briefly and didn't see the appeal. Everything that it could do is already done better by other services like Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, and so on. It was clunky and didn't really add any value to my online social experience.
Why are other companies trying to copy them? I don't get it.
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It's simple. The young ones like it because the old farts don't and aren't using it.
Re:Can someone explain Snapchat to this old fart? (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with your assessment of Snapchat. We're too old to understand it. Best I can do this conversation with my niece (13 y/o).
me: why do you use Snapchat?
niece: everyone is on it. Why aren't you using it?
me: can't you do the same thing with Facebook Messenger or any of the other chatting programs? I mean some of these "cool" features have been since ICQ and AIM.
niece: I-see what? You're a dinosaur like my mom, you still have a Facebook account.
me: you don't have a Facebook account? But you have an Instagram account that's own by Facebook
niece: yeah, but I only use the Instagram to read the stupid things people do like this "guacamole lady". I never post anything on Instagram.
me: so you use Snapchat because it's not Facebook?
niece: kinda, but mostly because the stupid things I say and do probably won't come back to haunt me when I use Snapchat. Messages disappear. And aren't you the one telling me to scrub my online present and watch for my privacy.
me: (teary eye..she actually listened)
niece: I have a school fundraiser
me: damn it, here's a $20 get some chocolate for yourself
TL:DR version: people use Snapchat because messages disappear, network effect and it's not Facebook.
Re:Can someone explain Snapchat to this old fart? (Score:4, Insightful)
Come to think of it, "it's not Facebook" should be enough reason to use anything.
Thanks for the perfect explanation. :)
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Just make sure your niece understands that messages "disappear", but can be retained by people she messages (or hackers or other agents). Especially if she thinks SC protects her ability to send images of herself without risk.
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niece: kinda, but mostly because the stupid things I say and do probably won't come back to haunt me when I use Snapchat.
Your 13 y/o niece is wiser than very many adults. So, yay?
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TL:DR version: people use Snapchat because messages disappear, network effect and it's not Facebook.
I have teenage kids and it's the same deal. Messages disappear, no stupid ads, and it's not FB. FB simply cannot compete with this.
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You not using it is the prime sell.
Who copied whom? (Score:2)
Facebook Live has "masks" now (think Snapchat's Lenses).
More like Skype, Windows Live Messenger, and a half dozen other video chat clients I can think of? Snapchat didn't do it first (or even best.)
Instagram has geostickers (like Snapchat's location-aware stickers.)
More like the stickers available in every photo editor since the 90s? (Why is location-aware a feature - you're telling me it's a good thing that I can't use a sticker if I'm not in a specific physical location?)
WhatsApp has "Status" (think Snapchat Stories). Instagram has "Stories" (think ... Snapchat stories).
You mean like a Twitter feed, or heck even Facebook's Timeline view?
The latest fruit of Facebook's labours is Messenger Day -- "a way for you to share these photos and videos -- as they happen -- by adding to your Messenger Day, where many of your friends can view and reply to them". It's Snapchat Stories. Again.
More like your Facebook Timeline, but from Messenger.
Seriously, Snapchat is not the or
Drag Wars (Score:1)
I'd say bringing this article to Slashdot is a bit like bringing a drag queen to a sports bar to talk about why new wig shop on the block is much better than the the old one.
Massive bitching in vain.
LOL (Score:2)
Implying that Facebook ever had self respect...
Masks vs. Lenses (Score:2)
[quote]Facebook Live has "masks" now (think Snapchat's Lenses)[/quote]
Yes, thanks, that clears everything up for me. I totally know what "Snapchat's Lenses" are.
The social media buzzword generator for whatever awesome new feature thing-a-ma-bob of the day is driving me nuts. Can I use my Giphy-powered Slack API to Mask a Snapchat Lense on all this stupid horseshit?
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Facebook Live has "masks" now (think Snapchat's Lenses)
LOL! Quote markup fail! I'm too old for the web.
Remember Poke? (Score:2)