When you’re famous for the mantra “Move fast and break things”, chances are not everything you do will be met with success. And if you’re a huge company like Facebook, you wouldn’t make a big deal about projects that haven’t met your expectations and just shut them down without any fanfare. Basically, that’s what they’re doing now with several apps they launched a few months ago, and even the initiative that started them all, Creative Labs.
That’s right. The start-up like project that spawned such apps like Slingshot (a Snapchat like ephemeral messaging service), Rooms (a group messaging app that doesn’t require you to have an FB account), and Riff has officially been closed by Facebook. And so are those three aforementioned apps. A spokeswoman from the tech giant said that the apps have not been updated for some time now and that some of their elements have already been incorporated into the main app.
As for Creative Labs, it was a “two-year experiment” where developers within the company got to create stand-alone apps like the aforementioned apps. However, they didn’t fully market the apps that came out of the lab and there were reportedly just modest expectations for them. And so now when the apps didn’t seem to fly, they were unceremoniously pulled out. The website for Creative Labs is also now gone.
Facebook said they will still experiment with apps and focus on adding features to the primary app, like the recently introduced live streaming and 360-degree videos. They are also maintaining the newsfeed-reading app Paper, as well as Hyperlapse and Layout, which are stand-alone apps for Instagram.
VIA: CNet
