Meta launched Instants, a standalone Instagram spinoff app that allows users to share disappearing photos with friends, marking another attempt to challenge Snapchat with which Meta has maintained a years-long rivalry.
Instants opens directly to the camera like Snapchat and lets users share disappearing images with friends. The catchphrase for the app is real life, real quick, with the idea being that Instants will enable simple image editing in a privacy-friendly way. No edits, share instantly, the Google Play Store description states.
The app emphasizes raw, unedited content sharing of temporary photos designed to engage younger audiences. Instants is essentially a renamed version of Shots, which was a feature Meta tried out in Instagram last year. Shots was also a no-edit, no-filter image-sharing option that allowed Instagram users to quickly send a picture to a friend. That friend was then only able to view the image once before it disappeared from existence.
The separate Instants app has been in development for the last few months, with initial references to it spotted in the back-end code of Instagram in February. At that time, Meta confirmed it was experimenting with the concept but had no concrete plans for a launch. Evidently, those plans have now solidified, and Instants is set to take on Snapchat in at least some regions.
Conceptually, the app feels like a mix of BeReal and Snapchat designed to prompt more spontaneous interaction as opposed to more polished feed posts. That could help get people sharing more often, and clearly the response data showed that there was some interest in the concept. This is presumably what led Meta to explore another version of the application.
Meta may be launching this new Snapchat-style app at this stage because Snapchat’s growth has stalled and has even decreased in some regions. The Facebook-parent company may see this as an opportunity to put the pressure on in the hopes of shrinking Snapchat’s market reach even more. Meta has had a vendetta against Snapchat for years, stemming from its efforts to acquire the app in 2013.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered $3 billion for the rising platform as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel rejected Meta’s advances, though after meeting with Zuckerberg in person and deciding not to take him up on his offer, Spiegel said Zuckerberg seemed to take the rejection personally.
Since then, Meta has launched several Snapchat replicant features designed to dilute Snapchat’s presence including Instagram Stories, which has gone on to become a major element of Instagram and has impacted Snapchat’s growth trajectory. There was also Poke, a more direct Snapchat clone app that did not catch on. Meta launched it in 2013 then shut it down 17 months later. Slingshot was another Snapchat killer app that Meta tried out in 2014 but was shuttered after just 6 months. Quick Updates on Facebook was another attempt Meta tried in 2016 to encourage raw, unedited sharing in the app.
Outside of Instagram Stories, none of these efforts caught on, which probably does not bode well for this new Instants app either. But Meta is seemingly determined to bury Snapchat, and with parent company Snap in a vulnerable state particularly as it looks to the launch of its coming AR glasses, Meta is seemingly smelling blood in the water again. Snap recently laid off 16% of its full-time staff and its CFO stepped down.
Although history suggests it will not work, maybe with Snap unable to allocate resources to promotion in some markets, Meta will be able to steal some thunder with at least some users. Instants does not seem like a major app, and its functionality is intrinsically tied back to Instagram, which many teens may not feel comfortable with.
However, in regions where Snapchat is declining or has not gained a foothold, maybe Instants can become the top instant sharing app.
As of writing, Instants from Instagram is only available in Spain and Italy, and users in those regions can access it here.
