An odd sense of déjà vu is flooding over us as Facebook Messenger introduces a new feature. It hasn’t been that long since Instagram took Snapchat’s idea of a photo/video story being available for 24 hours with fun filters and text additions. Now that Instagram is seeing huge success and the story option is gaining popularity, Facebook has also decided it was time they tried it out. Facebook Messenger Day had a pretty seamless launch yesterday, with the casual addition of the feature having no major glitches.
While many may be questioning why they need another way to share what they’re doing, Facebook actually has something that Instagram and Snapchat don’t. The website’s primary function is to keep you connected with the people in your life, as opposed to just sharing pictures and videos. With Messenger Day that idea is taken one step further in hopes that it will urge people to make plans in an instantaneous and spontaneous way.
“The two key functionalities are 1) I’m going to set context because it’s going to make for better conversations if people know where I am and what I’m doing. And 2) It’s about where I want to take my day, like ‘I’m bored and I want to go out for coffee’ or ‘I want to go see a movie’ so I’m going to use a frame, take a photo, and see which of my friends are going to engage with me to actually make that plan, because planning is one of the core capabilities of a messaging app.”
Getting into the nitty gritty of the app, you have the ability to post in the moment photos and 15 second videos (Ha! Take that, Snapchat and Instagram), GIFs, and images from your camera roll. If you have a story, it will show up at the top of the app as well as next to your name, so that your recent conversations can see what you’re up to. We are well accustomed to the 24 hour time limit of the posts – however the posts will be arranged “reverse chronologically” to urge the plan-making goal of the feature.
The functionality actually makes a lot of sense, but one has to wonder if people will be willing to use the Messenger app as frequently as the ones we’ve already grown accustom to. We’ll have to wait and see if Facebook sees the same success that Snapchat and Instagram did, but for now things are looking good.
