Facebook Is Killing Its Snapchat And Instagram Knockoffs

After nearly a year and a half in the App Store, the company finally killed off Facebook Poke, its failed attempt to cut off Snapchat's massive growth by making a clone with Facebook branding.

While those with the app can still use it (for now), it is no longer available in the App Store. The same can be said of Facebook Camera, the Instagram knockoff Facebook released two years ago this month.

This really isn't a surprise for anyone who's been paying attention to Facebook's apps and its competition.

Poke, through a cute throwback to the "poke" feature of Facebook's early years, never came close in App Store rankings to its target, Snapchat. Besides a lack of promotion on Facebook's part, the app also relied on Facebook's social graph, removing the privacy benefits that drew in many early Snapchat users.

Facebook's support of its Camera app made even less sense. It competed directly with Instagram, shortly after Facebook spent approximately $1 billion on the photo-based social network. It, too, failed to move up the App Store rankings, keeping its reach limited to only a small fraction of Facebook users.

(Via The Verge)