Technology people will never learn that you can’t win on features alone. Any feature can be copied. And any technology can be surpassed.
See: Instagram Stories.
Snapchat @snapchat: That moment when Facebook comes into your house, eats your lunch, and flips your wife the bird. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’m only PARTIALLY writing this in response to a Brandcenter student who thinks it’s my fault she didn’t invest in Snap before shares went up last month. Of course, that’s before yesterday, when Kylie Jenner forced grandpa to keep working until he’s 80.
But mostly I’m writing this because Marco Arment, the guy that invented read-it-later services, co-founded Tumblr, and makes my favorite podcasting app, wrote some advice about [Defending your app from copies and clones){https://marco.org/2018/02/22/your-app-was-copied]:
The instant someone else has the same feature or design as you, the public and press see it as a collective checkbox feature, or a “standard” or “obvious” design, that apps in this category just have. It’s no longer yours.