Facebook Teases Snapchat By Revealing Instagram Stories User Numbers

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Snapchat-like features are already on Facebook’s Instagram, but what is more hurting for the former is that people love the features on Instagram more than they do on its platform. Facebook has been regularly adding various features that are very similar to those of Snapchat in its mobile app, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Facebook teasing Snapchat

Instagram stated that over 200 million people engage with Instagram Stories every day. Shares of the newly-listed Snap tumbled 1.2% after Instagram revealed metrics about its user base. The numbers were released as the Facebook-owned company showcased its new sticker feature for Instagram Stories, a feature pitted directly against Snapchat.

Although Instagram’s subscriber base is far more than 200 million, it seems Facebook was more interested in announcing Stories-related numbers. Snapchat, on the other hand, had 158 million users as of the fourth quarter of 2016, and according to The Verge, not all are users of Snapchat’s own Stories feature.

Snap has also struggled to revive itself after a stellar IPO. The stock fell by about 26% from the record high close on March 3, but it is still up 17% from the IPO price. Snap is set to release its first quarterly results as a public company on May 10. Thomson Reuters data suggests the company is expected to report a loss of $193 million. The company has already warned that it didn’t turn a profit.

Revenge by recreating its own Snapchat-like features

In 2013, Facebook offered to buy Snapchat $3 billion, but the latter turned it down. After this failed attempt, the social networking giant went on to acquire apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp to build its own Snapchat-like platform.

It went on to unveil various Snapchat-like features such as sticker pinning videos, selfie stickers and geo-stickers. The geo-sticker feature is only a month old and was released in New York and Jakarta.

Meanwhile, Facebook Stories (launched a few weeks ago) has also become quite popular, even better than Snapchat Stories, and there are a host of reasons for this. Facebook is offering as many as 50 unique filters with the photo effects and frames. Users can also add text to add context to the Stories and do crazy things such as adding beard on a face, making videos and adding text with the Artisto app.

Users can also record 20-seconds videos — 10 seconds longer than what Snapchat offers. They can also save their Stories if they want to before they disappear. Users can access these filters and camera effects in the camera feature of Facebook’s app. These features can be applied before taking a shot, thus allowing users to have a live preview of the filters.

“The Instagram community has shown us that it can be fun to share things that disappear after a day, so in the main Facebook app we’re also introducing Facebook Stories,” the company said in a blog post announing the feature.

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