Two platforms, both alike in dignity, In fair California, where we lay our scene, from acquisition grudge break to new mutiny, where story blood makes story hands unclean. Whenever anyone brings up the topic of Facebook vs. Snapchat recently, you want to reach for an old sock full of quarters and repeatedly smack yourself in the face with it until everything is peaceful and the pain is all gone. Being in the social media industry you just get hammered with an onslaught of questions, discussions, and hypotheticals daily over who’s going to win the advertising battle and why the hell it took Snap 4 years to put a damn search bar in there. But while all the “Professionals” and “Influencers” are debating why someone would even have the desire to search for puppies or how to advertise to those users on Snapchat, lets step back and take a look at the world of apps and social media after the passing of Snapchat. A world without Snapchat Crystal Davidson slid out of her bed, covered in more pillows than the acceptable amount for any human trying to sleep comfortably, and made her way to the kitchen. She cracked open a couple eggs, watched as they sizzled in the pan and had an incredible realization. “These eggs look exactly like Miranda Cosgrove, that girl that played iCarly!” She needed to show everyone now! Flipping through the phone screen, she thought about sending it to her Facebook Messenger Day friends list then thought, what’s the point, they’ll all see the story on Facebook anyway. She quickly pops open the app and wonders about her Whatsapp friends in Europe that would love to see some eggs at lunchtime. Should she send it there first? Wait! This is no ordinary photo to just be thrown about any social network, THIS IS ART! This needs to be the beginning of her Instagram story for sure! All the food and travel bloggers will literally, eat it up. She opens the camera and points it down to her sizzling replica of one of Nickelodeon’s former top stars, and stops. Her eyes start to pool with salty tears as she realizes her moment is gone. These eggs no longer look like the only teen actor that wasn't on the show Victorious, but now resemble what can only be described as burnt eggs. While racking her brain trying to determine the perfect place for this glorious photograph to live for 24 hours on social, she had killed breakfast face Miranda Cosgrove. And this was only the very first part of her day. There IS too much of a good thing. For years all of these apps have had their major differences that set them apart as being useful in their own certain way. A lot of people now will tell you the same thing and try to find the smallest difference just to keep saying how and why they can be used as different platforms. But let's be honest. This shit is pure copy and paste all because Snapchat was having a pretty good run at a younger demographic and Facebook got scared. So they proceeded to plaster it all over every single piece of property they own. It doesn't make it good, have any redeeming qualities, or make it better. It makes it boring. When 5 out of the 7 top apps do the exact same thing, we all lose. The same advertising goes cross-platform and the creativity begins to die. Look how easy it is to throw ads on Facebook, Instagram feeds, and inside Instagram stories. Of course in a perfect world, brands would do their testing and segment based on user behavior, but a lot of companies are lazy and slap the same ad across all 3. Pinterest is hanging out over here getting no action even though they’ve implemented an AR lens that searches for objects, brands, and colors from photos you take and links you directly to the products. Twitter just fired off 300 hours of their own live programming in Q1 that includes Cheddar, Bloomberg, and a really great sports talk show. You know what you hear about Twitter? That they’re always dying. Even though it apparently took Snapchat an eternity to implement critical features that seemed like a no brainer, they weren't the problem. The problem is greed and that only benefits the platforms themselves as much as they want to make it seem like it’s all about you. When every platform is basically the same, you end up with the same boring ragged out old content. It’s people’s stories, but what’s the point if it’s all the same story?
