TOPLINE
Facebook on Wednesday launched Instagram Reels, a feature that mimics rival TikTok by letting users make short videos set to music—but this isn’t the first time Facebook has copied rival companies. Here are other times Facebook released product updates similar to other companies:
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee ... [+]
TIMELINE
Facebook creates a standalone app called Slingshot, one of the company's first major attempts to stave off the rise of Snapchat. The app, which was shut down in 2015, let users send ephemeral photos to friends just like Snapchat. There was one big difference: users couldn’t see a “shot” until they sent back their own message. That feature, though, was eventually removed after three months.
Facebook launches “On This Day,” which surfaces old posts and photos from the same day years ago. The feature is exactly like Timehop, a rival social media service that had amassed 6 million daily users at the time Facebook copied it.
Facebook unveils Instagram Stories, a copy of Snapchat’s flagship feature that lets users post videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours. Former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom admitted at the time Snapchat “deserves all the credit” for popularizing the idea and Facebook eventually expanded the Story feature to the main Facebook app and the Messenger app.
Facebook allows users to buy and sell goods from other users via Marketplace, a dedicated tab for peer-to-peer shopping similar to Craigslist.
Facebook creates a standalone gaming app, Facebook Gaming, with the ability to live stream gameplay like Amazon’s Twitch.
Facebook announces Messenger Rooms, a video-chat feature challenging Zoom and Houseparty as online communication skyrocketed during the pandemic.
As TikTok finds itself in the center of a geopolitical conflict between President Donald Trump and China, Facebook launches Instagram Reels, a short-form video feature that not only has similar functionality to TikTok, but looks and feels the same too.
Key background
Copying rival features isn’t illegal, but Democrats grilled CEO Mark Zuckerberg on whether the company was abusing its market power by boxing out competitors during the House Antitrust Subcommittee hearing last week. “We’ve certainly adapted features that others have led in, as have others copied and adapted features we’ve invented,” Zuckerberg admitted in a tense exchange with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-W.A.).
Tangent
Facebook has always kept a close eye on competitors. Using Onavo, a VPN app it acquired in 2013, Facebook tracked which rival apps Onavo users were opening, and used that information to inform product and business decisions. Facebook removed the app last year amid privacy concerns, but it was integral in its decision to buy WhatsApp, BuzzFeed News reported, and Onavo data was also used to monitor Snapchat after Facebook launched Stories, according to the Wall Street Journal.
