Facebook has developed several apps, some of which failed to touch the mark, such as Slingshot, Riff and Rooms. Owing to such failures, the social networking giant has decided shut down Creative Labs, its startup-like initiative with the purpose of encouraging employees to design innovative and unusual mobile software.
Removed several apps
The first apps to be shut down are Slingshot, an ephemeral messaging service that Facebook introduced with the intention of competing with Snapchat, group messaging service Rooms, and Riff, which helped users create and share short videos based on a theme. The company had pulled down the Slingshot, Rooms and Riff apps from app stores as of Monday, says a report from CNET.
These apps failed to meet Facebook’s mantra of “Move fast and break things,” and this is the reason behind shutting down these apps. The Web page for Creative Labs has also been pulled down. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the news of the removal of the above-mentioned apps, noting that these apps had not been updated in some time.
“Since their launches, we’ve incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps,” she said.
Facebook focusing on other areas
Such a move from the social network suggests a changed focus to other areas of innovation. Facebook is working on building artificial intelligence technology and drones to beam Internet signals to far-flung parts of the world. The company is also steadily adding some new features to its primary social networking service, such as live streaming and 360-degree videos.
Creative Labs was a two-year experiment, and Facebook’s famous “hackathons” served as the inspiration for it. Hackathons are binge-coding sessions in which developers work together to create a prototype app or service for a day or so. Slingshot was one such app which was conceived two years ago by Joey Flynn, a designer, and Rocky Smith, an engineer.
Since the start, Facebook did not have very high hopes for Creative Labs, and it signaled that too. The company told reporters that it does not expect its user base of more than a billion people to sign up immediately for those apps. Also it did not promote the apps heavily.
