Facebook Messenger Day, a Snapchat Stories Clone, Arrives on Android and iOS

After the launch of the Messenger Camera, Facebook has revamped its Messenger app to make it more like Snapchat as well. The company has launched a feature called Messenger Day that essentially offers Snapchat Stories' ephemeral messaging - the ability to sharing photos and videos with your friends that automatically disappear within 24 hours. This feature is being rolled out globally to all Android and iOS users via an update, and you can manually check Google Play and App Store to see if the update has arrived or not.

After updating the Facebook Messenger app, the camera icon at the bottom of the screen will turn into a Sun marking the arrival of the feature. Tapping the Camera icon will open the Messenger camera with new features and editing tools. You can scribble, add emojis and text to your image, and play around with stickers before sharing it with all users. Once you press on the arrow key at the bottom, a new option called My Day shows up that allows you to share it for everyone to see, just like the way Snapchat's My Story works. These photos and videos disappear in 24 hours. You can also choose to send the photo/ video to a specific user in Messenger or even just save it on the camera roll if you wish to.

The user can also add media content from a conversation into Messenger Day. After you send a photo or video, the option to Add to your day pops up and once you confirm that, it will be added automatically. Just like Snapchat, all your friends' photos and videos shared on their day can be seen by you, subject to their privacy settings. You can choose who sees the My Day section, and who does not. Tap more and choose Everyone Except or Custom options to specifically choose who sees the content. You can also alternatively delete the media file after posting if you wish to. Tap the three dots at the bottom right hand corner of your image, and then select Delete.

Notably, the feature was first introduced in testing back in September last year, and at that time, it was available only in Poland.

Facebook introduced a similar Snapchat clone in its Instagram app a while ago - calling it Instagram Stories. Even its other acquisition WhatsApp got a similar 24-hour disappearing images feature in WhatsApp Status. Looks like the social media giant is brazenly copying Snapchat features into all its verticals, and it's only a matter of time before we see a shade of it in the main Facebook app as well.