Facebook Launches SnapChat Competitor, Confirms “Poke” was Always a Dirty Word

December 21, 2012 • Commentary • by
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Since last week, rumors were floating around that Facebook would be launching a direct competitor to sexting photo-sharing application SnapChat. SnapChat, which allows users to send self-destructing photos to friends, has been steadily gaining popularity since it was developed and launched by two Stanford students in the summer of 2011. Facebook’s answer is a riff on a familiar theme. Their new app is called “Poke” and finally gives meaning to that ambiguous Facebook term that’s been floating around since 2004.

The Poke app is advertised as a “fun and easy way to say hello to friends wherever you are,” and allows users to send self-destructing photos, notes, and videos to their Facebook friends. In short, it’s exactly like SnapChat.

To add to the creepiness of the service, the audio “poke” alert you receive whenever one of your friends sends a message, photo, or video is the voice of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg. Evidently his recording was a joke at first, but the developers, who made the app in 12 days, put Zuck’s sound clip through some signal processing and included it in the app.

I doubt that Facebook’s Poke app will take a turn for the debaucherous and become a sexting app as SnapChat was once advertised. Rather, it seems that the application will stick to the benign realm of goofy selfies. But only time will tell.

Get it while it’s hot.

Poke is available on the iTunes App Store

Attribution

Facebook Blog
iTunes AppStore

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