Facebook's new update is another step towards trying to destroy Snapchat
If you can't kill them, copy them mercilessly until everyone comes back to you
In the latest in a series of how-much-can-we-rip-off-Snapchat-until-they-die moves from Facebook, the social media giant has launched Facebook Messenger Day.
Messenger has had quite the week, what with finally testing a dislike button, and now the company has introduced a function within Messenger which...is basically Snapchat.
You use Messenger’s built-in camera to take pictures or videos then add text, doodles, cartoon overlays or facial filters (there are 5,000 pieces of art available to play with) and then drop your little masterpiece into a digital bundle (your “Day”) that all or some of your friends can access, and that deletes itself every 24 hours.
What Facebook claims separates this from Snapchat is that it is for communicating the now, rather than what you’ve already done. They envision you taking a picture of your coffee and sending it your Day with the caption/doodle/text asking if anyone is free to join you. With the capability to reply directly and privately to pictures, the idea is that one of your mates will be able to ask where you’re at and come join you.
We suppose another difference between the two rivals is that with Day, you don’t need to add any of your friends, you can just snap with the network you’ve been building for the last ten years, which does actually count for something in our books.
Messenger Day appears above your chat threads on Messenger’s home screen, in a similar way to Instagram Stories. There will be tiles previewing the Days of friends, instead of just a name and profile pic and they’re ordered reverse chronologically to help you make plans with people sharing now. If there’s a little green dot on the tile, that person is live now. Your next friend’s Day will automatically play after the one you just watched.
The bad news is Facebook’s VP of messaging David Marcus told TechCrunch Day will “probably” insert adverts between posts to become one of Messenger’s first revenue streams.
Messenger Day has been tested in Poland and Australia, but will be released globally on iOS and Android over the next week.
