• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 7, 2017

Just like Facebook siloed Messenger as a separate app in 2014, Instagram is now testing a standalone messaging app in smaller markets outside of the United States.

Dubbed Direct, the experimental app opens in camera mode -- just like Snapchat. Initial test markets include Israel, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Uruguay, and Chile.

For Instagram parent Facebook, the test -- first reported by The Verge -- is part of a broader effort to dominate the messaging marketplace.

Over the past year, that included relaunching Direct -- still with the Instagram app -- to include permanent and disappearing messages in one thread.

By April of this year, Direct had surpassed 375 million users more than half of Instagram's global community of roughly 600 million users.

At about the same time this year, Facebook’s Messenger service surpassed 1.2 billion monthly active users.

For Facebook, the test is also part of an ongoing assault on Snap. Among other efforts to overshadow it younger rival, Facebook made it more fun to send and receive messages via WhatsApp, this summer.

Earlier this year, WhatsApp added a Snapchat-Stories-like feature dubbed Status. With it, users can share photos, videos and GIFs, which disappear after 24 hours.

Like other Snapchat-like features, Status has proven to a hit among users. At the end of July, the feature surpassed 250 million daily active users, according to internal figures.

More broadly, WhatsApp surpassed 1 billion total daily users, and 1.3 billion monthly users, earlier this year.

Further mirroring Snapchat, Facebook also began inviting Messenger users to add animated reactions, filters, masks and other effects to their video chats, earlier this year.

Instagram also added “face filters” over the summer. As with Snapchat, users can augment their selfies with swirling math equations, a wreath of flowers, furry koala ears and other tricks.