{"id":7977,"date":"2017-08-08T18:30:30","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-shuts-down-its-snapchat-competitor-lifestage-and-its-standalone-groups-app.html"},"modified":"2017-08-08T18:30:30","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T18:30:30","slug":"facebook-shuts-down-its-snapchat-competitor-lifestage-and-its-standalone-groups-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-shuts-down-its-snapchat-competitor-lifestage-and-its-standalone-groups-app.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook shuts down its Snapchat competitor Lifestage and its standalone Groups app"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Facebook is paring down its collection of standalone apps. The company\u2019s experimental \u201cteens-only\u201d app Lifestage<\/a>, designed to counteract Snapchat\u2019s threat, has been pulled from the App Store. Its disappearance was first spotted by Business Insider<\/a>, and Facebook confirmed its removal. However, Lifestage isn\u2019t the only Facebook app that\u2019s being killed off as of late \u2013 the company is also closing down its Groups app, first launched in 2014 to help users better discover, search and connect with their various Facebook Groups.<\/p>\n

In its announcement<\/a> about the Groups\u2019 app\u2019s closure, Facebook said it believed the team could do more for the community by working on improvements to Groups within the main Facebook app.<\/p>\n

It seems that\u2019s been the case for some time, however. The Facebook Groups app had grown to be very buggy in recent months, often to the point of becoming unusable. And it didn\u2019t look like Facebook had any interest in fixing those glitches, much less continuing to roll out improvements to the Groups app overall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Groups, I\u2019d argue, ultimately failed because it didn\u2019t address the problem with using Groups on Facebook at all. There was no News Feed in the app where you could browse just Group posts without Page updates and status updates from friends mixed in; there was no universal search across your Groups; and there was no way to organize Groups into collections for easier access, among other oversights.<\/p>\n

The app itself has already been removed from the App Store, and will stop functioning for existing users on September 1st, Facebook says.<\/p>\n

While Facebook Groups is still a key focus for the social network going forward \u2013 if not as its own, separate mobile experience \u2013 it\u2019s not as surprising that Facebook shutting down Lifestage.<\/p>\n

That app, by design, targeted a limited user base \u2013 only those 21 or younger could even sign up. Launched last year by then 19-year old product designer Michael Sayman, Lifestage put a heavy emphasis on video and on getting to know your friends through a QA type experience.<\/p>\n

But Facebook no longer needs a direct counterpoint to Snapchat. It has Instagram. In April, Instagram\u2019s Stories feature hit 200 million users, surpassing<\/a> Snapchat\u2019s user base of 161 million. As of this month<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram Stories has 250 million daily users compared to Snapchat\u2019s 166 million.<\/p>\n

The company has blatantly ripped off some of Snapchat\u2019s best features, like its augmented reality and selfie filters. Its ability to clone Snapchat\u2019s features is speeding up, TechCrunch\u2019s Josh Constine also recently noted<\/a>. Though it took nearly three years to launch its version of Stories, Instagram was able to copy the \u201ccreate your stickers\u201d feature in four months.<\/p>\n

That leaves little need to continue to focus on an app like Lifestage, which never became an App Store success. At the beginning of August, it was ranked #1,392 on the iOS\u2019s free charts in the U.S., and unranked on Google Play.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Facebook has cleaned house of under-performing apps. A couple of years ago, it closed down its internal incubator Creative Labs<\/a>, along with several of its apps, including\u00a0photo-sharing app Slingshot<\/a>,\u00a0anonymous chat app Rooms<\/a>, and\u00a0collaborative video app Riff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/TPmAejnj7rQ\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook is paring down its collection of standalone apps. The company\u2019s experimental \u201cteens-only\u201d app Lifestage, designed to counteract Snapchat\u2019s threat, has been pulled from the App Store. Its disappearance was <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-7977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t