Facebook reportedly creating an app to rival Clubhouse

Facebook is reportedly working on a product to compete with Clubhouse, according to The New York Times.

The report outlines that the social media giant is creating an audio chat platform. This news isn’t exactly surprising since Facebook is known to create clones of rival products. Further, Facebook isn’t the only company looking to clone Clubhouse — Twitter is working on a similar app.

Clubhouse is a fairly new social media platform that connects users via audio chats. The app can only be accessed by an invite, after which participants can move around virtual rooms discussing various topics.

The New York Times reports that Facebook executives have tasked a team with creating a similar platform, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The app is currently in the early stages of development.

As mentioned earlier, it’s no surprise that Facebook is working on a clone. The social media giant has a history of chasing new products. The company acquired WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus while they were all still fairly new.

Even within these products, Facebook has implemented copies of other social media platforms. Facebook launched Stories for Instagram in 2016 amid the rise of Snapchat. More recently, it rolled out its TikTok-like feature called Reels for Instagram.

Towards the start of the pandemic, the social media giant launched its Rooms group video chat platform to compete with Zoom.

Considering Clubhouse has started to gain traction over the past few months, it’ll be interesting to see if Facebook will be able to compete with it in time. At the same time, it’ll be interesting to see if Facebook takes moderation of a Clubhouse-like social audio platform seriously. Clubhouse has come under fire for a lack of moderation or tools to handle harassment, although Clubhouse has since improved.

Source: The New York Times