Snap Works to Stay Ahead of Facebook’s Cloning Practices – Market Realist

Snap Works to Stay Ahead of the Competition PART 1 OF 15

Facebook (FB) has recently created versions of several features that helped make Snaps (SNAP) Snapchat unique and compelling to its base of young users. Snapchat Stories, a feature that allows users to collect images and videos to tell a story, has been cloned by Facebook in various forms such as Instagram Stories in Instagram, its photo-sharing app.

Other Snapchat-like features, including disappearing photos, have recently surfaced on Facebook properties such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and the flagship Facebook app. Facebooks practice of importing Snapchat features seems to be designed to erode its rivals competitive advantages. This trend would make it difficult for Snap to lure away Facebooks users.

How could Snap cope with a rival that continually clones its features? The solution for Snap would be to differentiate its features by making them more appealing than the forms copied by Facebook. Snap seems to be moving in that direction.

Snap (SNAP) recently introduced a feature that enables users to add 3D animated objects to their images and videos. This feature could expand the options for its nearly 160 million daily active users to express themselves on the platform. The 3D animated feature can be viewed as an upgrade of Snapchats interactive filters that Facebook had already duplicated. The filters allow users to overlay flat effects on their photos.

Social media companies continually roll out features and services to attract and retain users and advertisers. Facebook, Snap, Twitter (TWTR), Yelp (YELP), and Alphabets (GOOGL) Google are all fighting for Internet advertising budgets.

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Snap Works to Stay Ahead of Facebook's Cloning Practices - Market Realist