Fashion
According to inside sources, Facebook is working on an audio chat app similar to the popular Clubhouse. The new app is probably under development in Facebook’s skunkworks division – the NPE Team (New Product Experimental).
The information comes from two people in the industry, who were not authorized to speak publicly. As the story goes, Facebook high management was so impressed with Clubhouse that it ordered employees to create a similar app. Clubhouse gained popularity mostly with its exclusivity – the app is available only for iPhones and is currently in beta, requiring an invitation.
Last month, Elon Musk appeared on Clubhouse being interviewed by two tech experts, boosting tremendously the app popularity. To the point where servers struggled to deal with the overload. Now, it’s interesting that Facebook is so eager to launch another voice chat app. Especially when the social network has already tried to do something similar in the past.
Some of you might remember CatchUp – an advanced voice call app that offers one-on-one calls, dedicated groups, and users’ current status (muted, dialing, online, etc.). Facebook developed it under the same NPE Team last spring, but it quickly fell into obscurity. Some might argue that it’d be much easier for Facebook to just acquire Clubhouse while it’s still green (and cheap) like it did with Instagram and WhatsApp.
The official comment from Facebook doesn’t bring anything to light, as expected. “We’ve been connecting people through audio and video technologies for many years and are always exploring new ways to improve that experience for people,” Emilie Haskell, a Facebook spokeswoman, said. In any case, it will be interesting to see where this one goes, so stay tuned.
