The twisted family tree of social media grew a new branch this week as Bloomberg reported Twitter was working on a new video feature which appeared to take its cues from Snapchat.
According to Bloomberg, Twitter is working on a new tool which will make it easier for users to share videos, and explicitly compares it to Snapchat. The report does’t say if Twitter is planning to add anything like ephemeral updates, Snapchat’s signature feature. Twitter has recently pushed to make its app easier to use, including releasing rather cringeworthy tutorial videos. Now it’s reportedly trying to make video sharing easier.
Judging by what they’ve described, it honestly sounds more like Instagram than Snapchat — it’s designed to decrease the number of button presses when a user wants to share a video, which is a shortcut Instagram eliminated ages ago by putting a big button in the center that leads right to the camera. But Instagram took a lot of inspiration from Snapchat in the first place, which is famous for having the camera front and center, so who even knows who’s related to whom anymore?
In the years its been around, Snapchat’s features have been ripped off left, right, and center. But has it ever actually worked for any social media site other than Instagram? Facebook, WhatsApp, and Skype have not changed significantly after getting Snap-like features bolted on. If Twitter does mimic any of Snapchat’s core features, they probably won’t add much.
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A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.
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