Facebook Introduces Snapchat Story-Clone ‘Messenger Day’ with over 5,000 Filters, Frames and Effects

With over 800 million users around the world, and growing, Facebook Messenger has become an important tool for communication. Even though WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, the company still wants to keep the two separate for now.

The war between Facebook and Snapchat isn’t yet over. First, Facebook-owned Instagram copied Snapchat and introduced disappearing photos, stories and filters on its app. Then, Facebook-owned WhatsApp introduced the ‘Status’ feature which is exactly the version from Instagram, except it’s for WhatsApp.

Even now, the largest social networking website is not satisfied with all the plagiarism. Now, Facebook has copied the temporary story idea and introduced ‘Facebook Messenger Day’ that will host disappearing stories for 24 hours.

The company has said that when the camera app was introduced in Messenger last year, a number of photos and videos were shared between people. This compelled them to unveil a story feature on the app, so that users can follow their friends on the platform.

“You’re always in control of who can see your day — share it with everyone, or choose specific friends and family members on Messenger. Since everything you add disappears after 24 hours, feel free to add as often as you want,” the blog read, also stating that this feature is rolling out to Android and iOS globally.

Here’s how Messenger Day works:

1. First make sure you’ve updated your Messenger app so you have the latest version on your smartphone
2. Open Messenger, and tap on the camera highlighted with a sun or tap the “Add to your day” button at the top of your inbox to get started
3. Take any kind of photo or video you would like to add to the story
4. To add art and effects, tap the smiley face icon in the top right and then tap to add to your photo or video. You can also add text over your images by tapping the “Aa” icon, and you can overlay a drawing by tapping the squiggly line in the top right corner.
5. Once you have your photo or video the way you want it, tap the arrow in the bottom right corner. You can then add directly to your day, save it to your phone’s camera roll, and/or you can choose to send it to a specific person or group of people. The photo or video that you add to your day will be viewable for 24 hours.

You can also add a photo or a video you just sent to a friend by tapping on ‘Add to your day’ button in the chat. Just like WhatsApp, you can decide who you want to share your day with. Since it is mostly your friends on Facebook, by default the Day will be shared with everyone.

It seems like Facebook is trying extremely hard to come up with ideas to make the platform more engaging, but has decided to resort to copying the idea. Now all the three platforms, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram have the exact same feature, which ultimately spoils the purpose of having something exclusive.

Snapchat has already opted for an IPO and the company is being threatened by the likes of Facebook for bringing down its business. Most of the people have actually shifted to Instagram stories because they can reach more people through the platform.

Source: Facebook Newsroom