👉 Background: Instagram launched back in 2010 as a location-based social app called Burbn. Fast forward to today, Insta has over 2.35 billion monthly active users and is part of the Meta family of products.

👉 What happened: Now, Instagram is looking to compete directly with Twitter with a product called 'Chronicles' that aims to replicate Twitter's core features. The goal is to encourage public conversations on Instagram... And they've even started testing it exclusively with celebs and influencers.

👉 What else: This isn't Instagram's first clone-rodeo - they've attempted to replicate many features and products from other companies before - with mixed results.

What's the key learning?

💡Move over first-movers, big tech companies LOVE to become a follower. A first-mover is when a company releases a new, innovative product to a market. This typically  gives the company a first mover advantage.

💡The (often) fast-follow is when a company quickly mimics the innovation and business models of its competitor. While you don't enter the market first, you have the hindsight and learnings from the innovator's launch.

💡 Instagram stole Stories from Snapchat or Reels from TikTok. Buuuut, a follow (especially when it's fast) can also go belly up pretty quickly. Like when every tech company under the sun blindly followed Clubhouse into the audio-based social media.

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