Facebook has come out with a new feature that closely aligns them with the popular social media platform Snapchat.

Users can record or take pictures of themselves and video record in the messenger application. The new feature lets you share with the public or a custom friend decorated photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. This is a slight variation from the popular application snapchat which only allows videos or pictures of a maximum of 10 seconds. Facebook has always made a habit of trying to compete with newer applications that may steal their thunder particularly monopolizing the industry of social media.

In recent years Facebook has bought out popular platforms like Myspace and Vine which had a strong base of users and was utilized in the services that they now provide. This will in essence be another revenue stream for the social media giant further connecting its users. The new and improved camera function will add yet another space for sponsors to fight for space.

Will it be able to compete with the popular Snapchat platform that is already established? The answer to the question is yes.

Facebook’s new feature will be able to compete and thrive even with a competitor. Facebook is more than capable of creating a similar setting but taking it just a step further. All platforms seem to be competing with Facebook in fear of being overlooked. They are continually adding new and improved features to overshadow their competitors. Facebook has no fear in copying innovative technology since they will always create more added value taking the application a step further.

One special feature that Snapchat doesn’t have that the new Facebook messenger has is active now. You’ll see a green dot on the Messenger Days of friends who are currently available to chat with on the app. That breaks the ice to push users from seeing a friend doing something fun to asking if they can come join thus further connecting people.

The biggest priorities should be some basic color and light adjustment filters, and caption background colors because messenger’s font is already a bit hard to read and can blend into the imagery to become unreadable.

Over the past few years visual communication has been very important and the trend will continue because people are more responsive to experiences. Facebook’s ideology has always centered around scale, not originality. It wasn’t even the first social media network but it was the one platform that interested everyone heavily.

Check out our other posts about Social Media.