After Snapchat decided it was worth more than $3 billion, it was only a matter of time before other social networks went with the whole “If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed” method. And sure enough, this week both Twitter and Facebook fired up the metaphorical Death Star.
Twitter’s changes are mostly just improving their admittedly terrible DM system. Twitter’s DM system has been a mess pretty much since the service started: The rules are arcane, the messages are hard to find, and it’s hard to know if you’ve gotten one. So they’ve changed that, and added photos in DM, according to VentureBeat:
Now you can send photos through direct messages, a clear sign that Twitter is beginning to tread into territory currently held by hot messaging apps like WhatsApp as well as Snapchat’s private photo messages. Additionally, your direct messages (DMs for short) now have a coveted spot on Twitter’s main navigation bar, right alongside your timeline view and notifications.
It’s not much, really, but it is at least an improvement. The real nuke is via Facebook, which added a similar feature to Instagram today. And it sounds suspiciously similar to Snapchat, according to TechCrunch:
When you go in to post a picture, you’ll see two new tabs on the top of the post: Followers and Direct.
With Direct, you can choose a specific friend and type a special message, and that goes only to your friend. Once that friend opens up the photo, their profile picture within the message gets a check mark, noting that it’s been read. Users can also like direct photo messages, and chat can ensue from there.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what Facebook does to you when you deny them. Nice knowing you, Snapchat.