Joining the Clubhouse: Facebook launches push into booming audio market
Facebook has today announced a three-pronged push into the audio market after in year in which demand for platforms such as Clubhouse has boomed.
The social media giant said it would build a new set of audio creation features in order to support people using the site to make their own content.
The first of its new products is Soundbites, which it described as “short-form, creative audio clips for capturing anecdotes, jokes, moments of inspiration, poems, and many other things we haven’t yet imagined” in a blog post.
Next, it is introducing live audio rooms, which it said would be available to everyone on its app by the summer.
This is a similar format to that popularised by Clubhouse, but Facebook’s app boss Fidji Simo told Bloomberg that the firm was putting its own spin on its version.
Unlike on the year-old app, Facebook’s audio rooms will be available for download by users, for example.
The firm joins Twitter is announcing an audio function of this type in recent months.
Finally, Facebook said that it was including podcasts on its app.
“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 — but until now, you had to leave the Facebook app to listen to these episodes”, the firm said.
“Within the next few months, you’ll be able to listen to podcasts directly on the Facebook app — both while using the app or when the app is backgrounded.”