Facebook Stories Proves Facebook Should Be Itself, Not Snapchat


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You’d think Facebook would be satisfied with weaving itself into the fabric of life so quickly and suddenly that everything from social mores to news standards has struggled to catch up. But that hasn’t been the case for a while, and with Facebook Stories, it’s starting to get a little embarrassing.

Facebook Stories, if you’re unfamiliar, is just like Instagram Stories, which in turn is basically Snapchat with the serial numbers filed off. It’s not surprising that Facebook would try and imitate Snapchat, the company that scorned their buyout offer, as teens love Snapchat and don’t care so much about the grandaddy of social networks. But Stories is so unpopular, Facebook has already resorted to passive-aggressive tactics to sell it, much to the derision of the internet.

It’s a bit depressing both how desperate these tactics come off and how stodgy a move like this feels. And to be fair, Facebook is far from alone, as anybody who’s used iMessage can tell you. It wasn’t so long ago that everybody was trying to be Facebook. Now, Facebook is trying, just as awkwardly, to chase the fads, which is especially odd as Snapchat is already facing problems as a publicly traded company and seems likely to meet the fate of other former tech giants like Zynga.

Facebook has fallen on its face quite a bit. Remember its attempt to turn Facebook into your phone’s operating system? And any tech company, no matter how powerful and successful, has products and ideas it never wants to talk about again. What Facebook needs to learn is that people don’t want Facephone or Snapbook or whatever clumsy portmanteau will come next. They want Facebook. Instead of chasing fads, Facebook should just work on being the best Facebook it can be.

(Via The Verge)

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