Facebook has been trying to copy Snapchat for so long it has become a kind of running gag in tech circles. The social networking giant started trying to duplicate the ephemeral-messaging app’s core features even before it offered $3 billion in a failed bid to buy the company in 2013. And the reason why says a lot about what makes the service so powerful.
The latest copy cat attempt came on Tuesday, when Facebook-owned Instagram introduced a new feature called Stories that lets users share a collection of photos and videos that disappears after 24 hours. The new offering is fundamentally identical to Snapchat’s Stories, right down to the name.
