Facebook's Poke Is a Wild Success - for Rival Snapchat

Snapchat, which lets people send self-deleting photos, videos, and texts to friends, has been enjoying a steady surge in popularity. It's not hard to see why: Even if you're not an elected official, the ability to send self-destructing, time-limited messages has an obvious appeal. A year after Snapchat's September 2011 launch, users were sending 20 million 'snaps' each day, and the app ranked just behind YouTube and Instagram on AppData's list of free photography apps. In early December, Facebook threw together its own Poke app, which would let users send self-destructing photos, videos, and Facebook messages. Snapchat users were not impressed. They hated the new app, deriding it as an obvious ripoff. The attempt to usurp Snapchat's role only succeeded in boosting attention for the app.