Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

[leemhoffman]

It seems to be common belief in startup land, that if you're smart and lucky enough to build a wildly successful consumer product, by the time competitors (particularly the 800lb gorillas) copy you, your network effects, market ownership, and brand will help insulate you.

It's why, I imagine, Foursquare still exists after Facebook places, why Facebook bought Instagram, and honestly why Facebook even exists in a world of Google's and Microsofts.

But what if at the genesis of every single new product, startups began feeding real time access to their most important stats to those 800lb gorillas? What would happen? Well for a while the big guys might ignore the data and scoff at caring about some insignificant startup numbers.

But then one day one of those startups would probably become really successful. Billion dollar acquisition successful. And all of a sudden the minds that be at the 800lb gorilla would say to themselves - "Wait! Why are we waiting for companies to be big enough that we need to pay $1B dollars! Why don't we just start buying or copying products as soon as they have really high engagement and growth rates before they come close to owning the market?"

And this seems to be exactly what happened with Facebook and Poke. Facebook has acknowledged [http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/mark-zuckerberg-voice-of-poke/] they tried to buy Poke a little while back, and when they were rejected decided to build it. And it seems to be working - as of right now Facebook Poke is now holding the #2 spot in the app store, while snap chat is #5.

This is in no way saying Poke has won, but if i were the SnapChat team I would be concerned. In fact, I think anyone that uses the Facebook API should be. I am. The Facebook API is an amazingly useful and powerful tool, but this is an issue that needs to be discussed, and the ramifications need to be understood. Because right now Facebook clearly seems to understand them, even if we don't.

[blhack]

If you are as confused by OPs talking about 800lb gorillas and soforth as I was:

Snapchat is a picture sharing application that uses facebook's API.

Poke is a competitor that facebook made.

OP is implying that facebook saw Snapchat's beginning success by seeing how many API calls they were making and then copied snapchat, instead of buying them.

Thus: OP is implying that Facebook uses its API to see up-and-comers in the social space, and then copies them.

(Trojan Horse was very confusing here. Typcially "Trojan Horse", used in this case, would mean that facebook was actually controlling snapchat interactions beyond what snapchat intended.)

Personally I don't think that this is a very unique idea, and calling facebook's API a "trojan horse" over it is absurd.

Buying out a company isn't done for honor, it's done for value. Facebook doesn't buy you because it's the "right" thing to do because you "beat them to it" with an idea. They do it because it's easier for them to do so than to build a copy. Maybe this means they're buying some IP, or a community, or some talent or something, but it has nothing to do with "because it's the right thing to do".

---

Snapchat: http://www.snapchat.com/#

Poke: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook-poke/id588594730?mt...

[dcope]

Where do you get the idea that Snapchat uses the Facebook API? I have the app and I see no signs of it and I can't find any mention of it on their website.

[kamakazizuru]

I dont get why this is surprising or absurd? People keep forgetting that nothing is free. The Facebook API maybe free - but the price you pay is to give facebook a cheap way to find out what other use cases their data, infrastructure and ecosystem can have. Similar to how facebook uses your activity within the network to find ways to make money and sell things to you and 3rd parties. Just look back a few days ago at the instagram flip-flop.

This is also a part of being a member of the free-market - companies copy each other all the time - when an FMCG launches a new type of __ (insert consumer good of choice here) - its only a matter of time before all the other players launch a variant. Its a part of remaining relevant and competitive - and it keeps everyone on their feet - I'd say its a great thing! In fact - maybe the snapchat guys should look out for complaints that people have about the Poke app - and use that to improve their own app as well. The only scenario where I´d call this a "bad guy" move on Facebook´s part is if they were to also simultaneously limit Snapchats access to the FB API - and I dont know that to be the case so far!

[loceng]

They wouldn't of had the data otherwise. But I am sure Facebook keeps an eye on anything with high API calls, etc.. It'd be best to avoid using APIs if you don't want the owners seeing your success.

[batgaijin]

Well I think his argument is that basically instagram was the last great acquisition; it launched while Facebook had a very weak position in regards to mobile app development.

[leemhoffman]

Thanks for expanding this out, I jotted this out as a quick thought, without probably giving context to people who haven't been following the story over the last couple days.

[sp332]

It's a trojan horse because something presented as a gift (or at least something good for you) is actually used to attack and conquer you when your guard is down.

[diego]

If I were to start a company today, I wouldn't touch the space of "social" with a linked list of ten-foot poles.

[TillE]

Honestly, I think the current incarnation of social crap is going to be pretty short-lived. If you really look at it, very little is actually any good at what it does. It's just barely good enough. Google Hangouts is probably the only significant innovation in the past few years.

I'd be very interested in a startup promising genuine innovation, connecting people in new ways and changing the way we can socialize, something that everyone of a certain demographic would want to use. That's basically what Facebook was early on.

But building in line with the current "social" paradigm? Not very interesting.

[biznickman]

1. We don't yet know whether or not Facebook's Poke app will be successful.

2. Snapchat has been popular for a while ... why did they just start copying now?

3. Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a desire to build in what they perceive to be as replaceable features since day 1 of the platform. SuperWall, SuperPoke, Free Gifts, and many more were eventually integrated or blocked. They've tried to replicate Quora (the questions failed), FriendFeed (they copied the "like" and the real-time feed before acquiring them), Instagram (their separate photos app), and more.

--

I think the key risk here is operating in a space that can be easily replicated by the 800lb gorilla. The API is not a trojan horse. It's the platform that enables many of the viral apps to grow. Yes, there's no doubt they get intelligence from their data, but that's not the sole purpose of the API and suggesting so is ludicrous (there are plenty of other sources for data, including the Apple app store).

There are also are plenty of examples where Facebook simply could not replicate some of the other companies' success despite a similar feature set. Blake Ross claims they made the new Poke app in "12 days". (He also was responsible for the failed Questions app).

It's a statement that they believe SnapChat is a feature. That's not yet proven and we'll have to see how this plays out. This is step 1 (test whether or not SnapChat is simply a feature). Step 2 is to become more aggressive with acquisition offers should the Poke app fail AND should SnapChat continue to experience massive growth.

[kanamekun]

The Apple app store rankings are public though... so couldn't anyone have seen that the app was doing well, and cloned it?

Beyond raw resources, Facebook's big advantages seem to be its well-known brand and its ability to incubate new properties. That brand won't always help though - in some cases, a focused brand will have an advantage. And a viral property could negate Facebook's distribution advantages - although perhaps that's less likely given how they've cut back on news feed distribution.

[leemhoffman]

My suspicion is that App Store rank doesn't necessarily translate into highly used app. Many of the highly ranked apps get there by buying downloads. There definitely is a ton of open data on app success out there, though spotting an app with an organically fast growth rate and high DAU is probably much harder without access to quality data.

[k-mcgrady]

The problem isn't that Facebook can just copy your company. Snap Chat built a feature, not a product. It seems to me turning down any offer from Facebook to purchase it was stupid. Facebook would obviously build their own version of the app in a few weeks and it seems likely Poke will win.

[jinushaun]

This is true of any API from a for-profit company, just look at the problems with Google Maps and Twitter. If I were making a startup today, I would not piggy back off any of these social APIs for this reason.

[contingencies]

Just letting you know in case it's not something you're aware of: your name reads like "Prostitute Shaun" in Mandarin.

[leemhoffman]

The problem, and I speak from first hand experience here, is that its increasingly hard to make a successful consumer product that does not leverage these apis. They are accelerants, and if our primary goal is to find product market fit and take the market before anyone else, not using those accelerants can be quite detrimental.

[octopi]

To those confused about how Snapchat uses the Facebook API:

At least for iOS, Snapchat (used to?) have a feature where you can "find friends via Facebook." Taking a closer look at the latest version now though, it appears this feature has gone away and the only way to add friends on Snapchat is through your contacts list or directly by username.

I believe the OP is implying that calls to the Facebook API (even those as trivial as fetching friends) gives Facebook valuable data that it can analyze and exploit for their own gain.

[spullara]

That feature wasn't present when I started using it a month or so ago. It made it impossible to find friends on it.

[Hawkee]

This reminds me of the dispute between Microsoft and Netscape when Microsoft released IE. There is always the chance that the 800lb gorilla will copy you, API or not. I find it hard to believe that Facebook copied SnapChat because of the API. They were probably most influenced by the press and acclaim the app was generating. Add in the fact that SnapChat only took 12 days to replicate and you've got a very real target.

[spullara]

As far as I can tell, SnapChat didn't use the Facebook API. I guess that kind of shoots a big hole in the argument?

[chews]

Sir, you're mistaken. At best facebook could've seen the calls Snapchat was using for friend matching but they weren't dependent as a company on facebook's infrastructure which is what your post is implying.

Snapchat should be concerned, but not because by use of facebook's apis gave facebook the valuable insight into some interesting user behavior.

No, they saw it was a cool app that was doing well in the store. They have distribution of over 800M people.... "hey, remember poking?... yeah that old feature we used to have... yeah... lets just make a snapchat clone and call it poke." That conversation could've happened over lunch or at a hackathon and it goes straight to production.

Guy's there is very little honor in the realm of ideas rightnow. Facebook is throwing punches just like everyone else.

[codexnight]

Well judging by the budget companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and so on have, they could theoretically copy almost anything and render startups and/or existing companies useless.Should we all give up on creating startups?No, definitely not.

Snapchat made a crucial error when they decided to refuse acquisition by facebook.I don't know what they were thinking.They should've analyzed the situation beforehand.They had no real leverage to refuse it.

On a side note, Facebook is powerful because we empower it.We could say it is an identity database and it is used by 800 mil people if not more.Also it is addictive to most of them.So in conclusion it's easier for users to just add something related to their already well established page.

[gregcohn]

Snapchat was a clever take but not particularly defensible.

The real test is whether FB will allow a strong competitor to survive and continue to consume its api.

Basically Twitter did the same thing to many of the basic tweet consumption & production apps -- the killer move Twitter made, though, was cutting off api access to those competitors, which FB have not AFAIK done. (Though another comment mentions that the find friends via FB feature is gone from snapchat, I haven't seen anyone commenting that they were cut off by FB and will assume it was snapchat's decision to remove it.)

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Can you tell us how much of the FB API SnapChat was using and if there's a "safe" way to take advantage of FB Graph and other features without leaking too much detail to FB?

[mschaecher]

I've never used SnapChat, but hypothetically if you wanted to limit data going back to facebook here's one potential approach.

For this example, let's say you have an app that you want to use facebook for account creation and friend finding, but not necessarily distribution inside of Facebook.

- force facebook login for account creation - upon auth redirect back to your app, force signup completion with password and other credentials you might need. - next step is invite/follow people from your facebook friends list. - When users come back to your account from now on, only allow login via the credentials you had them create (password) and the email address you pulled from facebook. No facebook logging in after the first time.

They'd still be able to see how many people used facebook to signup. But if you don't let people continuously login with FB, or interact with their API outside of one time or explicit actions, they won't be able to get a good picture of your retention and engagement.

[leemhoffman]

I think this is the key question. I don't have an answer, but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it.

[Aardwolf]

I (as a not really into the whole "Social" web thing person) am a bit confused:

Facebook itself already has photo uploading, sharing and commenting. Instagram is also something with photo uploading (but with applying effects to them). SnapChat is picture sharing. So if Facebook copied it I guess Poke is also picture sharing.

So Facebook has 3 different photo related things: Facebook photos, Instagram and Poke.

What is the difference between these 3, simply put?

Thanks!

[aorshan]

The big thing with poke/snapchat is that they send pictures that aren't stored anywhere and can only be viewed for a few seconds, after which they are inaccessible. This makes it easier and less worrisome for people to do things like sext or send pictures of themselves making silly faces.

[notatoad]

It seems to me that facebook photos is for sharing albums, instagram is for sharing single photos, and poke is for sending a photo to a specific person. technologically they are very similar, but socially they are all very different.

[dannyrosen]

Before we adorn our tinfoil hats and assume that the first thing the Facebook "Biz Dev" guys look at in the morning is their API stats, maybe this is an exercise in "Empowering" internal employees to work on side projects not directly associated with their core product. It also lends for a great headline about their dev culture which in turn attracts more dev talent.

[Fjslfj]

The guy who led the development is Zuck's sidekick.

[boi]

They did not get 800lb by happenstance, so stop being silly with all these trojan APIs and put-all-your-data-here-in-my-cloud trap, build your own stuff.

[ryanjones1]

Has anyone tried PiccyBoo? does the same but Android only.

[wantnotwant]

Yeah love it. It does video and pics. Better than poke or Snapchat. And has the FB integraton and filters too!

[scottmcleod]

The solution is coming: http//beingcollective.org

[tkahn6]

So here's something that just happened 5 minutes ago.

A girl I've been snapchatting with texted me and asked why the Poke app is just like snapchat. I asked her if it was better, and she said 'I haven't used it much, but it looks much better', and now we're using it instead of snapchat.

Pretty fascinating. She downloaded the app because they're advertising it on their mobile app.

[dcope]

That doesn't surprise me too much. Visually, the Poke app does look much more appealing however the big win is obviously the Facebook integration. Snapchat requires you to find friends by their phone number or by manually entering their username. The Poke application on the other hand allows you instant access to your entire friends list. In my opinion, the Poke app will obliterate Snapchat because of this.

[loceng]

They possibly knew she used Snapchat, too.