The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise but the delay in making the announcement does make one sigh. After months of speculation, Facebook has announced plans to launch new audio products and features to take on the invitation-only audio platform Clubhouse and also the audio aspect of Twitter.
The biggest among them...
Live Audio Rooms appear to take on Clubhouse and Twitter ‘Spaces’ head-on. To recapitulate, Clubhouse allows people to listen and participate in live conversations while Twitter’s ‘Spaces’ feature is quite similar and works as a live audio-only chat room. Facebook expects it to be available to everyone on the Facebook app by the summer.
Fidji Simo, head of Facebook app, has said that Live Audio Rooms will be tested in Groups, making it available to the 1.8 billion people using Groups every month and the tens of millions of active communities on Facebook. As part of the initial rollout, the company will bring the feature to public figures so they can host conversations with other public figures, experts and fans. “In addition to bringing this to Facebook, we also plan to release Live Audio Rooms on Messenger this summer so you can easily hang out with your friends too,” Simo has said.
Live Audio Rooms and Soundbites will drive Facebook’s foray into the audio world. Pictures: Facebook
Soundbites, a new way to interact
Soundbites is the other new feature, which will allow users to create and share short audio clips. Supposed to be launched over the next few months — first to a small section of creators — users will be able to make money in the Live Audio Rooms or with Soundbites. Soundbites will go into testing in the next few months and will be particularly helpful to put across an anecdote, a joke or even a poem.
Why not podcasts?!
More than 170 million people are already connected to hundreds of thousands of podcast pages on Facebook, and more than 35 million people are members of fan groups around podcasts. In the coming months, you will be able to listen to podcasts directly on the Facebook app — both while using the app or when the app is backgrounded. Further, Facebook will help you find new podcasts and episodes based on your interests.
Obviously, Spotify will play an important part. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, a partnership with Spotify is forthcoming. At the moment, you have to leave Facebook to enjoy a podcast but that will no longer be the case.
The interest in audio
That Mark Zuckerberg was interested in audio was made abundantly clear when he made an appearance on a Clubhouse chat a couple of months ago. “We think that audio is of course also going to be a first-class medium, and there are all these different products to be built across this whole spectrum,” he has told Casey Newton, a former tech reporter for The Verge who now runs his own newsletter.
Soundbites seems to be like Reels, which is Instagram’s TikTok competitor, but for audio. Getting inspired by features from competing products is nothing new for the company. Last year, during an antitrust hearing, he admitted to copying rivals. He said that Facebook “certainly adapted features that others have led in”. If Instagram Reels looks similar to TikTok, Instagram Sotries, a feature that was born in 2016, was a rip-off of Snapchat.
Zuckerberg is not the only one trying to find some space in the world of audio. Reddit’s take on a Clubhouse-like social audio product is called Reddit Talk. Then there is Twitter Spaces and Discord Stage Channels. LinkedIn too is working in the audio sector.
During his interview with Newton, Zuckerberg said: “A big part of the creator economy is that it’s enabling individuals and it’s shifting power from some traditional institutions to individuals to exercise their own creativity. I think that’s a positive trend in the world.… I think based on your prediction [that] this is likely to work better for individual creators or small groups, I mean, I could see that playing out for sure.”
The New York Times first reported Facebook’s plans to make audio features in December 2020.
