Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel responded to Facebook’s new Poke app today with the brief statement, “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.” He declined to comment further.

Facebook’s Poke is a standalone app for impermanent messaging; the interface and features are very similar to Snapchat, a young startup that sees 50 million photos shared per day and is in the process of raising a substantial funding round from Benchmark Capital.

This is Facebook’s sixth app, joining the regular mobile app, Instagram, Facebook Camera, Facebook Pages Manager, and Facebook Messenger. Instagram was acquired after Facebook began developing the Camera app, and it’s widely believed that Facebook dropped the Facebook login requirement for Messenger to compete with popular messaging service WhatsApp. This summer, Dalton Caldwell wrote a widely discussed letter, “Dear Mark Zuckerberg,” chronicling his experience with Facebook’s aggressive Merger & Acquisitions tactics.

Given that Snapchat is in the process of raising a major funding round, the timing of Poke is very interesting. On the one hand, having the world’s largest social network copy your app and onboard users across its mobile apps with much larger user bases could limit Snapchat’s growth significantly.

On the other, Poke certainly validates this space as more than a place for sexters and high school and college kids.

And just because Facebook built its own app doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t be interested in an acquisition. See Camera: Instagram.

Apple/IBM pic via dullhunk.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor “Poke”, An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What’s The Difference?

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It’s Good For Both Companies

Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends. You control how long your friends can view your message – simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send. They’ll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever. We’ll let you know if they take a screenshot! Build relationships, collect points, and view your best friends. Snapchat is instantly fun and insanely playful. Show your friends how clever you can be and enjoy the lightness of...

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Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...

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It’s A Facebook And Google World On Apple’s App Store, Poke Hits #1 A Day After Its Release

Remember all of this excitement hoopla over Facebook’s latest standalone app, Poke, yesterday? You aren’t the only one that is interested, apparently. As The Next Web reports, Poke by Facebook has hit the No. 1 free app spot on Apple’s App Store, just a day after being released.

Make no mistake about it, the big companies like Facebook and Google are going to have the best holiday season ever thanks to Apple and iOS. It’s very rare to see utility or social apps hold the top free app spot like Google Maps has over the past week, and like Facebook Poke probably will. It’s usually a game, or a boogers app that holds that down.

And they get massive downloads because of it, especially during this time of the year.

What does this mean for consumers…and for Apple? Most iOS users who are getting new devices, or even first-timers, are swayed by what’s hot on the App Store. The leaderboard is very important to onboard new users into the app ecosystem. Apple likes to highlight the best and brightest that shows off their technology, but the leaderboard shows what users are really interested in. Today, it’s all about Poke.

When Facebook said it was focusing on mobile, it wasn’t kidding. Holding the No. 1 free app spot is like having the biggest kiosk in a mall during the biggest rush of the year. This type of crowding from big companies isn’t what the App Store has seen over the years, as we usually have a big game launch right around Christmas, thus ruling the charts since Apple freezes new submissions and releases during the holidays.

Note that Snapchat is holding the No. 9 spot, and is clearly slipping in popularity, and Google is sitting pretty at both No. 2 (Maps) and No. 5 (YouTube). Even Pinger’s free texting and calling app is right up there at No. 6.

It’s also important to note that the new “hot” apps tend to surge up to the top quickly, as Poke clearly has, but remaining there for more than a few days is a real feat. Can Facebook do it? Let’s see as all of those new iPads, iPhones, Touches and iPad minis get opened next week. Also, having a billion users surely doesn’t hurt your distribution and marketing efforts.

Welcome, Facebook. Seriously. Who knew that a Poke would be so important?

[Photo credit: Flickr]

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...

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Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...

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Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the...

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