Even though Facebook Stories may not have attained the heights that both Instagram and Snapchat have attained in terms of the level or amount of usage of the future, the company has not made any efforts whatsoever to stop the feature. According to the reports from our sources, Facebook is incorporating a new AR doodling feature and Instagram’s looping Boomerangs.
Among these two features, the AR doodling which Facebook’s Camera Product Manager, John Barnett referred to as “3D drawing” appears as if it is the biggest feature. It gives users ability to move the camera and add the drawings before or while recording, allowing them to draw on something out of frame, then pan or unzoom to reveal it, as the camera will be able to detect surfaces like walls and tables to wrap the drawing onto them. It looks like a natural extension of the drawing tools which was made popular by Snapchat although Facebook’s version was taken to a more deeper/sophisticated level.
For those users who are devoted to Facebook Stories (as many of you that are out there), you might recall that Facebook had previously added looping GIFs to the in-app camera in the past year, well, it is obvious that those looping GIFs will be replaced with Boomerangs which are not the same in the technical sense; Boomerang loops go back and forth rather than playing all through and then repeating themselves like the GIFs do.
The big question before us therefore is this; will the new tools be enough to draw more people to actually use Facebook Stories? It probably will not, especially as Facebook has yet to make a case for making use of it over the far more popular Instagram version of the future. However, if Boomerangs can make the jump from Instagram to Facebook, there is at the very least a bit of hope that the interesting AR drawing features might go the other way to a platform that people actually make use of.
