Clone Wars, Facebook's Strategy to Rule the World
A lot can happen in a week -it’s an old adage that always rings true in the world of digital and social media.
This was a week of reinforcement in ideas, as Facebook continues to run with the “there’s nothing new under the sun theory” and their global domination of the social media landscape and ergo the Internet by any means necessary.
If they can’t buy you then they will simply make, aka clone, their own version, Instagram’s recent stories updates being a case in point. In fact the more I think about it, the less surprised I am by the tactic, it kind of makes you think maybe the Winklevoss brothers were on to something…
This week the platform started testing a beta version of a Snapchat clone “Messenger Day” in Poland. Poland? I hear you ask, why Poland? Well apparently it’s a region where Snapchat doesn’t have a foothold. If you live in the region and happen to have Facebook Messenger then you could share illustrated or filtered pictures and videos like Snapchat that disappear in 24 hours via the Messenger app.
If you’re a LinkedIn fan then you might of noticed another long touted Facebook platform Facebook at Work. Although originally spoken of as a platform that was here to dethrone LinkedIn, it’s now being compared more to Slack.
Facebook at work has been doing the rounds in beta for awhile but Facebook is finally ready to let it loose on the world.
Last but not least, and probably my favorite update, was Facebook’s reactions customizations. If you happened to click the heart reaction emoji early last week then you might of noticed a customized reaction for international day of peace where a stream of love hearts exploded down your timeline.
This isn’t the first emoji reaction that Facebook has played around with as they recently did the same thing for the Star Trek 50th anniversary. If, or should I say when, the platform decides to turn this into another advertising stream I can imagine some cool brand interactions if done well.
Story of the week
This week it has to be a toss up between the rebranding of Snapchat and the introduction of Snap-Inc or the fact that Disney is seriously considering buying twitter.
I found the Twitter story a real surprise after recently reading an indepth article about the company and CEO Jack Dorsey. The article about Twitter’s future focused on the mistakes they had made, as well as outlining how Jack was trying to reposition the brand as a news platform.
Add to that their recent success with live streaming of NFL games and some of the updates such as Twitter removing media and images from their character count, the idea that Jack and co might sell Twitter to Disney, now of all times is a surprise to me.
Ironically, Twitter was often accused of trying to be more like Facebook, probably the only major social platform that Facebook has never really tried to recreate for themselves.
Snapchat is Dead long Live Snap-Inc
This messaging app is rebranding in a bid to diversify its offering the first of which is a pair of erm… Sunglasses or Spectacles, as the brand are calling them.
Due out later in the year the spectacles will have a lens with a 115 degree angle and allow you to record up to 30 seconds of video you can share on Snapchat. If I’m honest I can’t really see these taking off but they have their own website, so check them out for yourself at spectacles.com
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Written By Haydn Corrodus
