Imitating can be a good thing when done properly. Sometimes, a copy can even be better if it can eliminate some of the original's weaknesses. The same goes with Facebook and its properties in copying Snapchat.
But when the imitating game continues, not only Facebook that is eyeing on imitating to advance forward. After Facebook blatantly copies Snapchat's core features, Google is trying to do the same with it copying some of Facebook's well-known features.
In July 2017, Google updated the feed part of its mobile app, which appears at the below the search box. The update makes it very similar to how Facebook is showing its News Feed. Google calls that feature of the app its "Feed." It includes local data and weather information, as well as events and restaurants with articles from media partners.
The company also rolled out "SOS" tools that deliver emergency information to users of its Maps and Search apps that are facing a crisis. This is somehow similar to Facebook's Safety feature that allows users to check in with family and friends after a terrorist event, natural disaster or other potentially dangerous situations.
Google is also pushing marketing notification to users using desktop Gmail application, urging them to use the mobile version of the app. This again, is the same with Facebook's strategy to make tens of millions of its users to also become users of Instagram, a photo-sharing service which grew 40 percent between June 2016 and April 2017.
So here is where Alphabet's Google has started its attempt in copying Facebook, after what Facebook has largely done to Snapchat.
Read: Facebook, Instagram Vs. Snapchat: Copying To Eliminate The Threats
Google has failed with Google+, and it has abandoned all hopes to create the Facebook-killer of its own. But this is not where it loses hope. Google still believes that copying can certainly be an advantage, rather than just brainstorming for ideas to compete.
As for Google in copying Facebook, Google certainly knows how profitable the social giant is with its fast-growing users. Facebook in fact is an internet company that has been better than almost everything on the web since its first inception. And with the social giant hitting 2 billion users milestone, it is one out of only a very few that can compete directly with Google on the web.
This highlights Google's fear when competing with the social giant.
The search giant acknowledges that a growing number of people on the web are shifting their activities with the advancements of mobile. They're seeking real-time data, and they are moving away slowly from the notion of traditional search that Google excels. People are moving the trends away from Google, to preferring information that they get through friends and online social activities, as well as information from their favorite publishers.
By giving its Google mobile app the ability to give information even before users start typing their query into its search box, Google is trying to make search experience more dynamic. And with Google on its own has a massive amount of users and their information, Google can tie them up together for precision targeting to create a preferably better experience.
But not that people have stopped using Google. The search engine is still by far one of the most used services on the web. The number of paid clicks have surged, driving the company's revenue to a market-leading billions of dollars revenue.
The problem is, people spend more time on social media networks like Facebook. People only turn to Google when they want to search for something.
And in terms of mobile, Facebook is still leading ahead of Google. Facebook's core product is more suited to mobile advertising because the ads fit right into the main Facebook News Feed, between status updates, news articles, videos and anything people are sharing on the social network.
Because Google lacks this ability, this decreased Google's CPC advertisements because advertisers aren't willing to pay as much for smaller ads placed on tablets and smartphones as they will for larger ones for PCs.
In contrast, Facebook advertisement's price, has a sharp increase year-over-year. Along with better mobile engagement, Facebook is performing better than expected for advertisers. This helped drive Facebook's share to a record high in July 2017.
But Google still has an advantage over Facebook in marketing mobile video ads. YouTube has 1.5 billion monthly users with a lot of original contents from unique creators. Meanwhile, Facebook is still figuring out how to make users create original videos to share.