One thing deserves another, and the same goes to clones. Facebook introduces Messenger Day, another copy of Snapchat's Stories feature.
Messenger is Facebook's third property that is having the feature, following Instagram that has debuted its own version of Stories and later WhatsApp with its Status. Before rolling it out to all Messenger users on March 9th, 2017, Facebook had tested the feature in Poland and Australia since September 2016.
Messenger Day allows users to share decorated photos and videos with the public or a custom friend, and will disappear after 24 hours.
It does things users are expecting it to do. It appears above chat threads on Messenger's home screen with the same bold design Instagram is having. There, users will see thumbnail tiles previewing the Days of friends in a reverse chronologically ordered.
To create a Day, users can use the standard camera feature to select "My Day" under the "Add to" section. Otherwise, users can also pick an existing image from their gallery straight within the app. Users can also tap the "add to your day" under images they've shared in a conversation.
While there's no Like, Day allows users to instantly reply privately a post with custom or pre-filled messages.
Facebook is the largest social media network around, and won't ever give up its throne to anyone. Messenger is probably one of the largest and the most feature-packed messaging app, and Facebook is still on the move to add more features into it.
While Snapchat may have invented Stories, Facebook is not afraid to copy, no matter what critics say. What matters to Facebook is whether the feature is valuable to its users. Copying and stealing are the opposite of innovations. But Facebook's ideology is centered around scaling up, not originality.
And here Facebook is clearly seeing Snapchat's Stories as something that worth a gem.
In many things, Messenger is already better than Snapchat. With a tight relationship with Facebook's core app, for example. Messenger can boast a lot more users than Snapchat or any others can. With Messenger Day, users are also having an advantage of having options to share Stories. And one special feature that Snapchat doesn't have, is the green dot 'Active Now' that indicates who are currently available to chat with on the app.
Snapchat is the underdog, but is still popular among its users for being more "private" than Facebook.
Facebook is late to adopt the Stories format. But its approach is certainly a big threat to Snapchat, especially when every of Facebook's core apps are now having the feature. If the feature succeed, it can slow Snapchat's growth.
Facebook's influence is its key to attack Snapchat in all corners. While its own version won't probably able to take away Snapchat's existing loyal users, but it could help in taking away much of its potential new users, if it can be good enough to convince people that they don't need to sign up for another social media account.
Further reading: Facebook, Instagram Vs. Snapchat: Copying To Eliminate The Threats