When it comes to copying and building on the ideas of other giants’ platforms, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg is not missing in action.
Zuckerberg has been in the spotlight for the past few days after launching Threads, an Instagram-based platform set to rival Elon Musk-owned Twitter. This platform undeniably possesses most characteristics of the microblogging platform.
Over the years, the Meta’s boss has a running history of being a copycat from copying Snapchat’s stories feature to cloning TikTok in the form of Instagram Reels.
During his first post on the new Threads app, Zuckerberg projects the app to reach over a billion users, a number that he said Twitter has not achieved. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it.”
Read also: 4 ways Twitter is different from Threads
Last month, news made around that the Instagram parent company Meta was working on a Twitter rival.
To show similarities existing between Threads and Twitter, Zuckerberg logged in to his Twitter account which has been dormant since 2012 to share the popular pointing Spider-Man meme while Musk also replied with a laughing emoji to a Tweet saying that Threads was a straight copy-and-paste of Twitter.
Like Threads, here are some Meta copycats
Snapchat Stories
In 2016, Facebook introduced “Stories” to Instagram, a rival to Snapchat which was on track and directly copied Snapchat’s fun face filters. By mid-2018, Instagram Stories had twice as many daily users as Snapchat.
Snapchat are an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc? One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients
Reels from TikTok
Instagram took on TikTok in 2020 after the platform introduced Reels and offered content creators as much as $10,000 to post their videos on the app.
TikTok is a short-form video hosting service owned by ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.
Both TikTok and Instagram Reels have also been in the spotlight since it was cribbed by the video-sharing platform.
WhatsApp editing features from Telegram and Signal
WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, also launched a feature earlier this year which allows users to edit a message up to 15 minutes after being sent. This feature has been available on rivals including Telegram and Signal.
Like WhatsApp, Telegram is a free messaging application where users can communicate with individuals or groups, and share photos, videos, and audio media, among others. On the other hand, Signal is an encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice, and video calls.
These apps despite their numerous features and functions can’t be compared with the likes of WhatsApp in Nigeria when it comes to user base.
Also, In 2018, Meta’s boss announced Facebook’s rival into the world of dating apps stating that Facebook Dating, “is going to be for building real, long-term relationships — not just hook-ups.”
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has earlier disclosed that Thread has hit a total of 30 million subscribers, a milestone achieved within 24 hours of the launch.
Musk and Zuckerberg had earlier disclosed interest to engage in a cage fight which made rounds on social media and gained massive reaction with both parties picking a location for the fight.
