14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook seems to be playing around with a new feature that would enable users to magically make their own posts disappear after a set time period.
The Next Web reports that Facebook is delving into the ephemeral messaging style that’s become so popular in the last few years. The company confirmed for the publication that it is currently running a pilot at the moment.
In the Q&A section on Facebook, the company explains to users how to set a published post to expire. “Setting posts to expire is only available in some areas right now,” Facebook states, although it doesn’t exactly give much explanation as far as the technicality behind it all.
The company said, however, that they’re running a small pilot at the moment and it’s only for iOS Facebook users. This lets people schedule deletion of their posts in advance and it comes with several deletion options varying between one hour and seven days.
Snapchat, Poke, Slingshot and Bolt
This isn’t the first time that Facebook has tried to delve into the world of ephemeral messaging tools. The company had an app out on the market, called Poke, that was a near replica of Snapchat, which was shut down earlier this year.
There’s also the case of Facebook reportedly trying to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion last year, a deal that didn’t work out in the end. This was before Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, which happened early this year.
Eventually, Facebook launched Slingshot, which requires the recipient to send something back before actually seeing the content of the original message. There’s also Bolt, which technically belongs to Instagram, which is part of Facebook. This tool allows users to send messages that can expire, pretty much banking on the same idea.
What’s interesting about this new effort from Facebook is the fact that this isn’t a messaging app that we’re talking about here, but rather the actual Facebook platform. Even though at this point this is a limited test that only regards iOS users, it will likely expand to its other mobile apps, as well as to the desktop version of the platform.
It should be interesting to see whether the world’s biggest social network will actually be a good place to welcome disappearing messages. While it’s not uncommon to see people delete statuses and comments on the platform, it should be interesting to see whether people need such a feature and if they’re going to use it much.