Meta has quietly released a new standalone app for Facebook groups called “Forum.” The company appears to be positioning Forum as a platform that functions similarly to Reddit, describing the app as “a dedicated space built for deeper discussion, real answers, and communities that care.”
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, appears to have first discovered the app.
When you sign in with your Facebook account, your forums will be populated with your groups, profiles, and activity, and you’ll be able to post with your nickname just like you would in the standard Facebook app. Meta pointed out that your group still exists on Facebook, and anything you share in the forum will appear in your group on Facebook.
Mehta said the forum feed is centered around conversations within groups, allowing users to see “what real people are saying, not just what’s trending,” and making it easy to pick up where they left off.
The app includes an AI-powered “Ask” tab where users can ask questions and receive answers compiled from discussions among different groups. There’s also an admin AI assistant that helps admins manage groups and manage content.
This isn’t the first time Meta has released a standalone app for groups. In 2014, the company launched a dedicated Groups app aimed at allowing users to easily share content between groups, but that effort was discontinued in 2017.
Forum is one of two new apps that Meta has rolled out in recent weeks. Last month, the social media company rolled out a new app called Instant that allows users to share their disappeared photos with their Instagram friends.
Instants and Forum come about in Meta’s broader effort to release more apps. The Wall Street Journal reported a few weeks ago that CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that the social media giant aims to roll out more apps than ever before, as AI-powered efficiencies will allow it to build more apps.
“So Chris and I were talking about, ‘Okay, can we build 50 new apps?'” Zuckerberg reportedly said, referring to Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product office. Well, probably. But before you try to do 50 things at once, you should probably start by doing a few things. ”
While Meta may think consumers want more apps, that’s likely not the case, especially if most new apps are copies of other popular services. For example, Instants borrows ideas from BeReal and Snapchat, while Meta Edits, which launched last year, is largely a copy of ByteDance’s CapCut.
Mehta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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