Facebook Developing Camera-First Format
April 25 2016 - 3:00PM
Dow Jones News
Facebook Inc. is developing a stand-alone camera app to
encourage its 1.6 billion users to create, and share, more photos
and videos, people familiar with the matter said.
A prototype of the app developed by Facebook's "friend-sharing"
team in London opens to a camera, similar to disappearing photo app
Snapchat, the people said. Another planned feature allows a user
recording video through the app to begin live streaming, they
added.
The project is in its early stages and may never come to
fruition, the people said.
Still, it reflects anxiety within Facebook over users'
increasingly passive behavior on the social network. Many users
check Facebook daily or even multiple times a day, but fewer are
sharing photos, videos and status updates about their own lives.
Reversing the trend is a growing priority within the company.
A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment on product plans. The
spokeswoman said the overall level of sharing on Facebook was
strong and "similar to levels in prior years."
The people familiar with the matter said the camera-first format
is aimed at motivating users to create photos and videos. By
comparison, Facebook's flagship mobile app opens to a personalized
feed of articles, status updates and ads that encourages users to
consume content, but not necessarily create it.
The approach also differs from Facebook's Instagram
image-sharing network, which has gained a reputation as a place to
post only the best, most well-photographed images. Instagram forces
users to go through several steps before posting a picture,
including filters.
The decline in sharing on Facebook has emerged as a problem in
the past year. Technology-news website The Information reported
earlier this month that "original broadcast sharing" on Facebook
was down 21% as of mid-2015, compared with the prior year.
In the first quarter of 2016, 33% of Facebook users polled by
market researcher GlobalWebIndex said they updated their profile
status in the past month and 37% said they uploaded or shared their
own photos. A year ago, 44% said they updated their profile status
in the prior month and 46% said they uploaded or shared their
photos.
The camera app is just one way Facebook is tackling the issue.
The company started to display prompts, or "reminders," at the top
of some users' news feeds last year. Many prompts are based on a
user's interests and location; others are for holidays like
Father's Day, football games or television show premieres.
Facebook has also attempted to re-engage users with new features
such as "On This Day," which lets users relive and share past
posts. This and similar features appear may have prompted more
users to "like" Facebook posts, according to GlobalWebIndex, which
said that in the first quarter of 2016, 82% of Facebook users
clicked "like" at least once in the prior month, up from 73% during
the same period a year earlier.
More recently, Facebook gave some users the option to post
pre-made collages from their recently taken photographs. Last
month, the company bought video-sharing app MSQRD, which lets users
enhance videos through filters and offers the ability to "swap"
faces with others in the picture. Snapchat has a similar feature in
its main app.
People familiar with the matter said the camera app under
consideration is also intended to spur creation. The content could
then be shared to Facebook or its other properties, including
Instagram.
But any new app will face a challenge among users increasingly
reluctant to download more apps. Facebook itself made this argument
earlier this month for "chatbots" within its Messenger mobile app.
Last year, Facebook shut its in-house app incubator, Creative Labs,
and removed three of the unit's unpopular apps from the Apple's App
Store and Google's Play store. Facebook said it would continue to
develop stand-alone apps.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 25, 2016 14:45 ET (18:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024