The well -known social media giant, Facebook, recently launched its own podcast platform. But unfortunately, less than a year later, they have closed it.
Based on information we reported from The Verge on Thursday (5/5/2022), the closure has been confirmed and current speculation is that the podcast will close on June 3. The closure is part of a broader re -evaluation of Facebook's audio products.
"After a year of learning and repeating the first audio experience, we decided to simplify our range of audio products on Facebook. We continue to evaluate the features we offer, so we can focus on providing a better experience," said Adelaide Coronado, Meta spokeswoman.
In addition, Facebook also closed their service titled Soundbites and Audio hub. By integrating directly via Live Audio Room into the Facebook Live feature.
In fact, there have been rumors of a decline in the social media giant's interest in podcasts in recent weeks. Coronado said they are more interested in highlighting the metaverse.
Simply put, Meta's interest in conquering Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and rivals such as TikTok, has attracted more attention than those audio services. Meanwhile, competition in this field is more difficult and tight.
This is considering, there are already other podcast application operators, such as Apple and Spotify. Both have become big threats, plus there are Clubhouses, Twitter -owned Spaces and Reddit Talk, so guaranteeing Facebook will stand out in the market is really tough.
For information, the launch of this podcast service itself has been announced since last year where Facebook revealed its podcast service will start operating on June 22, 2021.
"Facebook will be a place where people can enjoy, discuss, and share podcasts they like with each other," they said at the time.