These days you don’t even need to download Snapchat to build Snapchat Stories.
Facebook on Thursday rolled out yet another update mimicking the feature, this time in Messenger. Called Messenger Day, the update allows you to share photos and videos to a story within the Messenger app, adding filters and stickers as you go. The stories, like Snapchat’s, will disappear after 24 hours.
Day is essentially an extension of the Instagram Stories feature, which the Facebook-owned social media app launched last August. This week, Instagram made the feature even more similar to Snapchat’s by adding geofilters.
Facebook has already let some users test Messenger Day, but Thursday’s rollout makes it globally available. To use it, you tap the camera in the messenger app or tap “add to your day.” Take a photo, choose from more than 5,000 effects, and post. You can also add photos directly from a message conversation. The stories will appear at the top of the app.
The only thing that separates this feature from stories on Instagram or Snapchat, is the privacy feature. When posting to your Day, you can choose whether everyone can view it or go to “custom” to choose a group. Otherwise, Facebook’s latest update appears to be just another way to blur the lines between the companies.
Something about imitation being the greatest form of flattery, right?
Well, not necessarily. Facebook’s move into Snapchat’s turf has already hurt the photo-sharing app. A TechCrunch report from January found reports that the view count on SnapChat Stories has declined up to 40 percent since the Instagram Stories launch. Instagram’s feature, meanwhile, has reached 150 million daily users.
With Facebook’s more than 1 billion daily users, Messenger Day could hit the newly public Snapchat even harder.
