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

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 Read more...