Facebook (FB) announced on Monday some new tools for creating and sharing audio. Similar to its movements in the video behind YouTube, the disappearance of photos after Snapchat and short-lived content on TikTok, Facebook is once again looking to grow a new environment and a competitor. Audio has reappeared with the rise of podcasts and more recently with live social audio on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces.
Facebook wants to “treat sound as a first-class medium in the way we treat photos and videos,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday in an interview with journalist Casey Newton on another group discussion platform, Discord.
Facebook is working on its own live audio product, called Live Audio Rooms, and will test it in Facebook groups. The company plans to make this feature available to everyone on Facebook this summer and incorporate it into its messaging app, Messenger. Reddit also announced its own Clubhouse product on Monday.
Podcasts also come on Facebook. People will soon be able to listen to and discover new podcasts directly on the Facebook app, as they can already do on alternative platforms such as Spotify (PLACE) and the Apple podcast.
Another new product is called “Soundbites. These are audio clips that are in short form, such as TikTok videos, but are instead focused audio with subtitles. The feature will first be available to a select number of creators, including comedian Drew Lynch and motivational speaker Molly Burke.
Facebook has also announced plans for creators to make money with these new audio tools. This would include charging for access to Live Audio Rooms and using Facebook Stars, its tipping feature. The company is also launching an audio creation fund to support those who use its Soundbites feature.
Zuckerberg said Monday that he likes audio because theoretically people can consume it more easily while multitasking and also because production is “more accessible.”
“A big part of the creative economy is that it empowers individuals,” Zuckerberg said. “I think this is a positive trend in the world.”
.Source
Related
