Facebook is no doubt the largest social network out there with 1.65 billion active users and each day, they are tasked with coming up with ways to make sure engagement stays high on the network. This usually results in releasing products to a limited subset of users to judge the response then later on if satisfied with the results, they end up rolling it out to all users.
The new test the company is doing will definitely remind you of Snapchat. According to Techcrunch, Facebook is testing a feature called Quick Updates. In the test, there was a smiley icon at the top right within the Facebook app which when tapped ushered you to a new page that has a tutorial to teach you how you can share stuff to your friends. The content that you can share include stuff like photos you uploaded way back and you have an option to overlay text on the photo just like in Snapchat. When you are done with adding a text overlay, you can now select the friends to send the photo too and if you get a reply, you will view it on the Activity tab.
This sounds like a great idea as they try to offer features that have made Snapchat so popular, especially with the young people. However, Facebook confirmed to the publication that this was just a test to some users and they are not planning to move forward with the product. It is odd they are not moving forward to launch it but you never know, Facebook might decide to launch it in the distant future.