Why Facebook Wanted Snapchat So Badly

Facebook's reported $3 billion bid for Snapchat has a lot of industry watchers scratching their heads. But if you look at the performance of Facebook's would-be Snapchat killer, Poke, the overture makes more sense.

Facebook released Poke, a messaging app that mimicked Snapchat's self-destruct feature, last December. Thanks to the social network's imprimatur, it zoomed to the top of the download charts, according to App Annie.

SEE ALSO: Is Snapchat Really Worth $3.5 Billion?

Poke fell out of the top 25 quickly after, and as of mid-March or so, it began a free fall out of the top 1,000. Among social networking apps, Poke is ranked around No. 300.

Snapchat, meanwhile, has consistently ranked among the most-downloaded apps since late last year — around the time Poke was introduced.

Given such a comparison, Poke is a dismal failure. However, Facebook has not pulled the app, as Twitter did with its short-lived Music. Poke is also moderately popular in a handful of countries, including Cambodia, Bulgaria and Panama, where it is featured on Apple's iTunes, according to App Annie.

In the United States, Poke isn't featured on iTunes, but it carries a respectable three-star rating culled from about 900 reviews on the download page. This is the same rating as Snapchat, though the latter's is based on more than 38,000 reviews.

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Source : http://mashable.com/2013/11/14/facebook-snapchat-poke-charts/