Facebook And Its Many Imitations – Taking The Shortcut to Success?

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Facebook Inc FB seems to have given enough reasons for a few of its smaller brethren opportunities to feel flattered.

Loop Capital Markets in a note released Wednesday highlighted some of the features Facebook, specifically its Instagram platform, has aped and has found success with.

Interest in Pinterest

Analyst Blake Harper noted that Instagram rolled out a feature on Tuesday that has taken after Pinterest's popular format. The feature, called collections, allows user organize saved posts into collections.

However, the analysts noted Instagram's collections are private unlike Pinterest's, which can be either public or private. The analyst expects Instagram to roll out a more polished format for public collections.

Hooking to Yelp's Bookings

Instagram has also rolled out a feature that allows users to book appointments with businesses, a feature imitated from Yelp Inc YELP. The firm finds sense in Instagram adding this feature due to its 8 million business profiles, with 1 million of them as active advertisers, and 80 percent of its users following at least one business.

According to the firm, this would enable Instagram to target direct response advertising budgets to complement promoted posts that are predominantly brand ads.

"Facebook has reportedly been testing new location based search and discovery features that could eventually compete more directly with Alphabet Inc's GOOGL Google Maps and Yelp," Loop said in the note.

Relishing Snapchat's Stories

Instagram has copied the Stories feature of Snap Inc's SNAP Snapchat, along with its tools and stickers. Instagram's daily active user statistics reached 200 million, up from 150 million in January.

Additionally, Loop noted Instagram rolled out an update to its private messaging feature, Instagram Direct, to include disappearing photos and videos. This has led to a strong rise in usage to 375 million monthly active users recently from 300 million in November.

"As a result, Instagram is broadening its use case for private conversations and informal content creation, rather than the exquisite highlight reel that its feed is known for," the firm said. "We expect Instagram to continue to be fast followers of successful Snapchat innovations."

Loop Capital has a Buy rating and $175 price target for shares of Facebook.

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