Facebook wins imitation game with its copycat strategy
2 min read . Updated: 20 Dec 2016, 09:44 AM IST
PremiumFacebook spent much of this year cloning aspects of Snapchat, the latest up-and-comer to try to poach users and ad money from Facebook
New York: Another day, another moment to be in awe of Facebookâs ruthless genius.
Facebook on Monday announced a way for people to use its Messenger texting app for group video calls. You may recognize this feature from the many other digital hangouts for multiparty web video calls, like Microsoft Corp.âs Skype and Facebookâs own WhatsApp.
As I look back at Facebookâs business in 2016, two trends stand out: its fantastically amazing financial performance and its fantastically amazing copying of rivals.
Facebook spent much of this year cloning aspects of Snapchat, the latest up-and-comer to try to poach users and ad money from Facebook. Its Instagram photo-and-videos app this summer added the ability for users to create a daily digital diary made up of photos and videos, along with virtual annotationsâ just as they can in Snapchat.
Copying is pointless, of course, unless it works. Facebook had tried before to copy elements of Snapchat and flopped. But this time there is some early evidence that Facebookâs Snapchat cloning effort has caught on. Facebook said last month that Instagramâs Snapchat-like âStories" had more than 100 million daily active usersâclosing in on Snapchatâs reported 150 million daily users. Snapchat recently added some features that were unique to Instagram Stories. In other words, the clone is forcing the original to do some copying of its own.
And Facebookâs year of cloning didnât stop at Snapchat and video calling. Facebook this year also followed the lead of apps like Meerkat and Periscope from Twitter Inc. in allowing anyone to broadcast live videos in the middle of an amazing sushi meal or breaking up laughing at a Star Wars toy mask. Mark Zuckerberg now has become the worldâs biggest proponent of live videos by the masses and has even been pitching them in television commercials.
Facebookâs live video initiative has usurped Periscope, forced Alphabet Inc.âs YouTube to play catch up and helped kill live streaming at Meerkat. Facebook also created a messaging service for office workers that looks and feels much like Silicon Valleyâs darling work app Slack. Heck, even Messenger itself and its nascent business model are borrowed from Tencent Holdings Ltdâs hugely popular WeChat and other messaging apps in Asia.
Borrowing product ideas may not be the whiz-bang innovation that gets people excited about flying cars, but smart copying is a way of life in the technology industry. It doesnât matter who came up with the idea first. If people spend a bit less time on Snapchat or Skype in favour of Facebookâs cloned versions, then that simply feeds into the companyâs engine that churns ad dollars from the remarkable 50 minutes a day users spend on average in Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
Zuckerberg and Facebook donât get enough credit for their cold-eyed business geniusâand the companyâs clever cloning is an important aspect of that genius. All hail the copycat king. Bloomberg
