In recent times, Facebook has seemingly grown more and more concerned about the threat posed by Snapchat - so much so that they've introduced a range of Snapchat-like features in an effort to keep users on platform, rather than have them flittering off to the yellow ghost.

And today, reports have emerged that Facebook is trialing yet another Snapchat-esque option, with TechCrunch sharing images of a new option called "Quick Updates" which is being beta tested amongst a small group of users.

Here's how tit works

Rapid Response

Those who are in the test group for Quick Updates will see a new smiley face icon at the top right of the search field in the Facebook app.

(Image via TechCrunch)

Click on it and you'll be given a tutorial on how the new option works - as you can see from the description here, Quick Updates don't appear anywhere else on Facebook, only in this new section, and they disappear after 24 hours.

(Image via TechCrunch)

Within the Quick Updates section, you're given the option to share content. There appears to be no restrictions on what you can share - it can be old photos from your camera roll or you can take a new photo, or even share a text update. You also have a list of your friends to whom you can send your update, and there's another field where replies or responses are listed.

(Image via TechCrunch)

Once you've taken a photo or chosen something to share, you can overlay the image with text.

(Image via TechCrunch)

You can also choose which of your Facebook friends are able to see your updates - in this sense, it's more like Snapchat's stories but with a user-defined audience, as opposed to all your Facebook connections.

(Image via TechCrunch)

From there, people can send replies to your quick updates and interact within the new system, which seems to operate separately from Facebook proper.

It's an interesting tool, but again, it seems doomed to fail. Not because it's bad, not because people won't like to use it. But because people are already using Snapchat - some 150 million daily users and growing.

And as such, it would seem, at a quick glance, that this will be just another measure that goes down as another loose attempt by Facebook to dilute Snapchat's influence.

Of which there's a growing history of conflict.

The Highest Form

Back in November 2013, at the conclusion of the meeting in which Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel rejected Facebook's $3 billion takeover offer, I imagine that Spiegel shook hands with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, both of them exchanging a friendly smile, then left. And as the door mechanism clicked into place behind him, I imagine a still smiling, but clearly smarting, Zuckerberg sitting, waiting a moment, then announcing to the executives remaining in the room.

"We have to crush him."

Of course, I have no real idea whether any such meeting ever took place, but clearly Facebook's been on a mission to destroy Snapchat ever since that decision.

Even before this, Facebook had already recognized the potential threat that Snapchat posed (obviously, they offered $3 billion for it), which they sought to counter with their own ephemeral content app called Poke. Poke enabled users to send a message, photo, or video to their Facebook friends which would expire after a specific time, as set by the user - either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds.

Poke was not well-received - while technically functional, and possibly even better than Snapchat, the app never gained traction. And after sitting relatively dormant in the App Store for 17 months, Facebook quietly shut it down.

But Zuck was still intent on beating Snapchat.

In June 2014, seven months after being spurned by Spiegel, Facebook launched their next Snapchat killer, an app called Slingshot which was predicated on reciprocal sharing - you couldn't see what someone had sent you until you sent something back.

Slingshot was met with a mostly tepid response, but the app did stay in development for some time - 6 months after launch (December 2014), Slingshot 2.0 was released, which changed the process and provided a new range of connection options - The Next Web described it as "Snapchat stories as an app".

(image via The Next Web)

As you can see from the above GIF, the Snapchat influence was still very strong, down to user interface itself, but by this stage Snapchat already had 74 million of its own daily active users and was quickly rising. Snapchat had launched the first iteration of its Stories feature around the same time as Slingshot was released and was working on a range of features that would keep users engaged and active on the app. By July 2014 Snapchat was valued at $10 billion, underlining the expanded potential many saw in the new challenger. Slingshot, meanwhile, peaked at #70 on the App Store chart, then dropped out of the top 1,500 around a month later.

In December 2015, Facebook shut down its Creative Labs project, ending the Slingshot experiment.

But Zuck and Co. are not defeated so easily - since the demise of their Snapchat challenger apps, Facebook's tried several times to introduce Snapchat-like features into the Facebook experience.

Last November, BuzzFeed reported that Facebook was testing a disappearing message option within Messenger, with French users given access to a new option to make their messages self-destruct an hour after being sent (as signified by an hourglass icon in the top right).

And within Facebook itself, The Social Network has continued to test Snapchat-esque tools - just last month reports showed Facebook was trying out a new feature which enables users to post content that will appear in people's News Feeds but not on their timelines.

There's also the new additions to Facebook Live, like the ability to draw on your video, and the recent integration of MSQRD video masks into the experience, which are pretty much exactly the same as Snapchat's Lenses.

Clearly, given these most recent tests, Facebook's still on a mission to crush Snapchat - a mission that may have become even more pressing over time as reports have indicated that sharing of personal content (people's thoughts, photos, etc.) on The Social Network has declined significantly. For a company that's built an entire revenue system on the back of its vast data resources, that personal data is crucial, and if Snapchat's stealing attention away, something needs to be done.

Will copy-cat functionalities like this help bring users back and get them to share more on Facebook? Probably not, but they have to do something. And even if such options are only used by a small percentage of people, that's still more attention, and content, remaining within Facebook's walls.

The Facebook vs Snapchat battle looks set to continue on for some time yet.

UPDATE: Shortly after TechCrunch reported on this new test, Facebook confirmed that it would not be going ahead with a wider roll-out