10 times Facebook copied a competitor

In 2004 a group of Harvard students, led by the unknown Mark Zuckerberg, developed a platform that would change the world without their original intent. A decade and a half later, Facebook had grown into a social network with more than 2 billion users. In those 16 years, the purpose and features of Facebook also changed. What started as an online contact book, grow into a platform you can use for almost everything.

Some developments and innovations were conceived by Facebook’s R&D department, but many others were inspired by disruptive newcomers who are putting Facebook to the test. And there is nothing wrong with that, because, as the saying goes: good artists copy; great artists steal. Of course, you could argue about the intellectual poverty or unfair competition, but that’s a topic for another blog post. In this article, you’ll discover 10 copies by Facebook and how well they succeeded.

Snapchat: Facebook / Instagram / WhatsApp Stories (9/10)

This is perhaps the best-known example. After Evan Spiegel turned down an offer from Facebook that wanted to take over his platform Snapchat, Zuckerberg decided to copy the idea of…