Facebook has copied so many features from Snapchat now that it’s gone beyond a joke. But hey, here’s another one to add to the list.
As flagged by Twitter user Case Sandberg on Wednesday, Facebook Messenger now includes a Snapchat-style “streak” feature. However, as The Verge noted, this seems to be a test that’s limited to only certain users.
The streak feature is a form of what the tech industry likes to call “gamification”—turning otherwise tedious tasks into games to give users a thrill every time they get a certain score or cross a certain threshold.
The streak game essentially rewards people for talking to one another. “Snapstreaks” use fire emojis to tell users that they’ve talked with certain people over consecutive days. Facebook’s version, meanwhile, uses a lightning bolt.
“Keep chatting to keep it going,” a popup urges users.
Messenger is testing out streak counts… Streak counts really bug me. pic.twitter.com/leDRemkSR3
— case (@CaseSandberg) November 22, 2017
Facebook did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment on the new feature.
With around 173 million users, Snapchat is a far smaller deal than Facebook Messenger, which has around 1.2 billion users. Nevertheless, Snapchat is popular among younger people whom Facebook doesn’t want to lose as users, so the larger company seems to be doing everything in its power to insert copies of Snapchat innovations into its various products: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and the mothership itself.
Just this year, it’s copied Snapchat’s stories and customized face filter features. That said, its copies don’t always pan out well. Hardly anyone uses Facebook’s Stories feature, for example.
