Facebook has recently announced its new app, Flash. Basically, it allows you to take photos of yourself, add wacky filters and send them to people, after which the photos are immediately deleted.
For most millennials, this should sound strangely familiar because this is literally the point of Snapchat.
Facebook isn’t stupid. It knows this, and it’s trying to mimic Snapchat’s success, but it’s not trying to compete directly with everyone’s favorite photo app.
Facebook is pushing the new app in emerging markets where Snapchat doesn’t have a foothold. They are pushing it exclusively for Android in an attempt to establish Flash as the norm outside of the United States.
It’s an interesting move, but not quite distinct, given that Snapchat already has competition.
Snow, yet another app that lets you add filters and send pointless messages, already has much of the market in Asia.
Unfortunately, Flash is only available in Brazil as of right now. However, Snow is available in the U.S., so we decided to do a comparison test.
As loyal Snapchat users, it seemed like all these apps would pale in comparison, and on downloading Snow it just looked like a Snapchat clone — the controls are identical, but when it comes to features, Snow is clearly Snapchat’s superior with dozens more filters, multicolored text, and the ability to set messages to unlimited time setting.
Further, despite the fact that Flash isn’t available in the U.S., even it has the upper hand on Snapchat.
It boasts an app size less than half the size of Snapchat and optimization for patchy internet, including a feature to automatically send Flashes as soon as the phone reaches Wifi. This lines up perfectly with the South American target market, where users are often limited on both storage and Wifi.
Together, these two apps seem to be putting significant pressure on Snapchat to optimize or maximize its features.
Despite this, Snapchat has such a position of power in the U.S. and much of Europe that switching apps isn’t viable. After all, as great as Snow is, unless your friends use it, why should you?
Therein lies the problem, because Snapchat has such a stranglehold on its markets. Snapchat, Snow and Flash can and will coexist, each controlling different regions.
We live in a world divided by religion, by politics and now by medium to send short-lived photos.
