Social media is all about the experience said a venture capital mogul once. And indeed the success of social media behemoth Facebook has relied heavily on the experience that it has managed to give its users. However to stay ahead of the game, Facebook bequeathed the pioneering to others and just copied the features in its own interface.

Our ears at CarbonatedTv piqued first when the “@ reply” feature first appeared on Facebook. The signature feature previously available exclusively on fellow micro-blogging site twitter made us take a closer look at what Facebook was putting out as upgrades.
Scratching the surface reveals that the copying saga is as old as Facebook itself. German website Multiply, managed by StudiVIZ accused Facebook of copying interface and features including its “propriety” news feed feature which was introduced on Multiply in 2004, a full 2 years before Facebook was launched.

LifeBlob.com, an Indian social media startup has been up in arms ever since Facebook decided to emulate their site features of displaying pictures in a particular format.
Twitter can stand next in queue for claims of features copied. At least half a dozen features from the micro blogging site were incorporated into Facebook. The raids started with the “@ reply” feature from Twitter where one account holder could directly direct their comments to another user.  From then on the features kept on being copied. The facebook news feed got a more Twitter like feel with a counter installed for new feeds – very déjà vu to twitter.

Another set of features directly copied is the short notifications update counter within the browser tab that is usually in the taskbar. Twitter, to make notifications quick added a short counter next to the site name in the bar. When multitasking you would know you have an x number of messages or feed updates waiting. Facebook gladly copied and incorporated this feature within Facebook.  In another move, Facebook also copied a mini profile highlight graphic that was native to Twitter. Moving the mouse pointer over any person’s profile opened a small box which carried empirical information about the highlighted profile. This feature was also absorbed and dutifully reproduced within facebook.

FriendFeed is by far the only site to have been flattered by Facebook the most. Before being acquired by Facebook, FriendFeed caught the social media storm. Mark Zuckerberg’s eager eye scanned every detail of the site to have it incorporated into his own Facebook brainchild. The infamous “Like” button on Facebook allows users to label any message, photo or any other content on the site. The idea was copied off FriendFeed. In other features copied were the real time news feed, and comments feature. Its acquisition of FriendFeed gave them access to a whole host of features including a more powerful search engine, site-wide public sharing tools and other things that are going to be slowly pushed out.

Facebook as recently as August 5 also bought out close to 18 social media patents for an estimated $40 million. So we are bound to see more integrated features in Facebook usually found on other sites. Facebook realizes that other competitors will be able to create interesting features. Facebook’s ability to integrate them smoothly into its own setup for its 500 million plus users will determine it success in the years to come.