The success of the audio-only social network service Clubhouse drew the attention of Facebook and the company wants to take advantage of its billions to build the system into its existing innumerable features.
I’ve always find it hard to define Facebook over the years as the company grew – it became more vague to the point that people don’t really find it engaging any longer.
Sometimes I do liken Mr. Zuckerberg to myself when I was 6 because I always wanted everything I see irrespective of whether I need or not.
The platform is so packed with features that you get to ask what is this again. Is it a social network or a market place or a search engine or a news website or all-in-one but it doesn’t matter because the company has all the billions to venture out and try new things as well as the billions of users to support its cause.
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Wanting to build Clubhouse’s feature into the Facebook’s limitless features might sound fun again but it might also just continue to prove the “anti-competitiveness” of the business right yet again despite still battling it out with the FCC.
A new leaked screenshot by software developer Alessandro Paluzzi gave a little bit of an insight into what the giant social networking platform might be planning.
In the screenshot, he shared a number of screenshots which showed the audio chatroom’s features and it appears to have been built right on top of the Messenger Room features which allows video calling with about 50 people while also letting you broadcast on the service.
#Facebook is working on audio rooms ?
ℹ️ The feature appears to be in an early state of development, the UI is just a mockup at the moment. pic.twitter.com/vCBN7MCB6r
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) March 14, 2021
Rooms on Facebook will be divided into three types – Live Audio, Audio, and Video
Source
From my understanding of the details of the screenshots, this will give the user three options when selecting chat room modes within the Messenger app and that includes Live Audio which will allow users to broadcast an audio chat session to listeners and will be opened to all users that come across it – similar to what Twitter is doing with the Spaces.
Then there will be the “Audio” which will allow users to host an audio chatroom session with only their friends. It will in fact be private and will work similarly to the Group video chats with friends just that it’s audio-only.
The third option is simply called video, which lets you host a group video call with your Facebook friends and contacts.
Paluzzi also shared another screenshot which showed the look of an ongoing audio chatroom on Facebook when full-screen UI is minimized.
The look of things is very similar to what have been seen on Twitter which allows you to scroll through the timeline while listening to the ongoing discussion.
Twitter on its own has opened up its own Spaces platform for anyone to join while all users on both Android and iOS platforms will be able to host chatroom session on Spaces by next month according to reports.
Telegram, on the other hand, has expanded its voice chat feature to channels, offering users something similar to Clubhouse, but with more features in tow.
So this might not be a war against Clubhouse as many people think but it might just be similar to the trend started by Snapchat which allows you to post videos or pictures that disappears after 24 hours. Then Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and basically every existing platforms now have it.