The strange movement of Facebook with LifeStage – lagranepoca

(Photo: Carl Court / Getty Images)

Facebook has eyes on Snapchat. The fact that the company founded by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown refused flatly to be purchased by the social network and the 1600 million users seems to have been enough to not have liked to Zuckerberg, who remains committed, a way or another, to attract the younger audience using their mobile applications Snapchat.

Facebook is doing everything possible to take that market share to the ephemeral messaging application. Whereas in the past month, it has included some of the most important features of Instagram Snapchat. And when we say we mean copying included. In fact, the founder of Instagram has acknowledged that inspiration came directly from Snapchat in article company blog announcing the feature.

First stories and then events, two of the heavy nuclei Snapchat, if we ignore the filters for selfies, it is already included in Instagram. And the problem is compounded Snapchat. As much as the company was a pioneer and forerunner of change in generation video content on mobile -and the same extent of change in acceptance of video vertically, Instagram eats ground. Some users are seeing no incentive to register with Snapchat if they already have Instagram, and many prescribers, famous and influential people are moving to the Facebook app leaving Snapchat in the background.

With all this we could intuit that, in a way, Facebook and Instagram are slowly eating pieces Snapchat on the video boards ephemeral. A board in which the king is the most active users has, which attracts more users. Therefore, with this potential advantage of Facebook / Instagram facing users registered and convertible into user stories, the latest move by Facebook on this booming market is not entirely clear.

And not it is clear for one simple reason. Most attempts to conquer a market Facebook have a common denominator, at least since the company eliminated the need to have a .edu account to register with the social network: making it more open and plural possible service, all with in order to attract more users.

lifestage, the new Facebook app by surprise weekend has broken with this dynamic. The application, which is really to compete with Snapchat, precisely limits the number of users who can enter. How? Demographic form. The first thing the app asks the user who wants to register is your date of birth.

Do you have more than 21 years? You can not register. Do not form part of any school / college within the program? You can not register. The idea of ​​Facebook with LifeStage is to make it an exclusive application for youth, and uses that exclusivity to attract the mass of users.

The reason for Facebook to limit LifeStage is to make it a haven for young people. An island so that only they can share content. The challenge is precisely to convince young people that thick. First, many young people have been attracted to Snapchat because the bulk of their prescribers are there. And secondly, the limitations of both operating system as age, creates a necessary friction for the takeoff of the app.

We do not know if the app ephemeral messaging are the new gold or just a fad but what if Facebook has taught us is that the social network is going all out, regardless.

Original article here.