Facebook has subtly copied one of Snapchat's features and here's why that's incredibly smart...

When you take a step back, Facebook’s stats are mind blowing.

• 1 billion active users in one day.
• 1.5 million active monthly users on average.
• At least 20 minutes spent on the platform per day per user.
• Owner of four of the largest social/messaging/photo sharing platforms in the world.

That’s a lot of muscle to flex, and a lot of potential eyeballs to sell to advertisers. Combine the usage numbers with plenty of clean, ‘segment-able’ data for every market on earth, and it’s easy to see why FB is the most powerful ad platform around.

For all startups, the holy grail is a ‘network effect’. This is the concept that a good or service becomes more valuable when more people use it. The cumulative effect of having your friends and community active on the same platform is enormous. Your product could be based on a great idea, simple to use and a beneficial to everyone, but if nobody is using it then it’s worth nothing. It’s the tech equivalent of ‘if a tree falls in the woods does anyone hear it?’!

More than most, Facebook understands this.  That’s why it’s bought it’s way into other markets like messaging with WhatsApp, and why it places such a value on owning every part of your online attention.

That’s also why Uber and Amazon are three of the highest valued companies in the world, despite making huge losses each year. They own a huge part of online commerce, and investors are betting on them owning more of it for years to come. 

Privacy

But back to Facebook.

Yesterday, the company quietly announced a new Messenger feature - a secure, self destructing messaging option between you and a friend that should prompt users to send more private information through the platform. It's promised to "better support conversations about sensitive topics".

Sound familiar?

One of Snapchat's initial key points of differentiation beyond Facebook was privacy. That's partly why it's become so popular with teens looking for a new platform to share privately, away from preying eyes.

Initially, this was a threat to Facebook, where openness and information sharing is a business priority from the top down.

But, like with the move to mobile a few years ago, Facebook quickly adapted, copied the best bits of other services and improved them. Through WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram private sharing and now this small feature addition, the company has embraced private sharing.

In a similar move before Christmas, Facebook launched 'Live'. Live streaming of course had been one of the biggest tech trends of 2015, and Facebook has been slightly left behind.

But, again, that’s no problem when you own the world's biggest social platform and vast amounts of online attention.

According to a Facebook post in December:

‘Live lets you show the people you care about what you’re seeing in real time – whethervisiting a new place, cooking your favourite recipe or just want to share some thoughts.”

The stream will display the number of live viewers, the names of friends who are watching and real-time comments as they are written. The video will be saved to users’ timelines until they choose to delete them.’

This could literally be the blurb for Meerkat or Periscope, both of whom Facebook has since blown out of the water. But the difference is, Facebook already has a reported eight billion video views every single day, and will reportedly be ‘mostly video’ very soon. So instead of having to build a user base, it can just bolt on a fairly simple product that has plenty of value for users, celeb personalities and marketers and reap the rewards.

Put it this way.

Isn’t it much more fun to stream live video when hundreds of your friends or thousands of your fans can watch it on a platform they already use and understand, rather than using Periscope where 10 randomers from around the world might see your stream?

That’s the network effect in a nutshell.

Ripped off

Facebook has used a similar strategy before. The push to video stole some of YouTube’s thunder, Places ripped off Foursquare, Questions competed with Yahoo Answers, the hashtag feature is directly ripped from Twitter, Facebook Deals competed with Groupon and the brand’s plans for brands on FB Messenger are also eerily similar to the likes of We Chat in China – building a commerce and service layer on top of messaging.

Unlike Snapchat or others, Facebook also has mounds and mounds of user data at its disposal to optimise its features. Famously, when Amazon want to test a UX tweak, they turn it on for 10 seconds, thousands of customers pass through and they've a massive data set to work from. I'd imagine it's a similar process when Facebook's engineers want to test something, and that instant feedback loop is a huge competitive advantage.

Basically, Facebook has a habit of taking other people’s features, improving them, applying massive scale, and leaving competitors in the dust.

It might look a little lazy from the outside, but it makes great business sense when your business is based on increasing the amount of time spent on your platform and then monetising that time. While not every new idea works, applying the ‘move fast and break things’ mantra means services that don’t take off can be quickly shut down and brushed aside, while those that do get traction get rolled out to billions of people.

I spoke last year about the power of the platform, referencing Spotify and Twitter.

But the last 18 months has really seen Facebook tighten its grip on the online attention economy.

The ease with which it can muscle in on a new market should certainly be worrying for everyone from marketers to media owners to other social platforms. But it is great business, and when you’ve a network that’s as large as Facebook’s, nobody can hope to stop you unless you become complacent.

Most large companies are not concerned with moving quickly, remaining flexible and prototyping new ideas. But the combination of enormous scale and a strong startup mentality sets Facebook apart.

Many people in tech whisper the cautionary tale of MySpace and Bebo. But as it stands, this is one social juggernaut that really is too big to fail.

When we look back in 50 years, I believe we’ll see Zuckerberg as a more important figure than Jobs or Gates in the way the internet is shaped, mainly because of his understanding of consumer behaviour online and ability to create products and features that reflect it.

Shane O'Leary
@shaneoleary1
www.shaneoleary.me/blog