Meta has a new app in the App Store and it looks an awful lot like Reddit.
The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space created for deeper discussions, real answers, and communities you care about,” according to its App store page.
In practice, it’s just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, where Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed focuses entirely on conversations happening in the groups you’re already a part of on your existing Facebook account. The forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning you can enter the forum with your Facebook login, and anything you post there will also be visible in your groups in the Facebook app.
Some readers may be feeling deja vu, and rightly so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a standalone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar dedicated app in 2014 that was eventually disrupted in 2017.
Perhaps to liven things up a bit, this time Meta also includes a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The app’s “Ask a Question” feature will draw on information posted on the group’s pages to respond to users seeking “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group administrators, which will supposedly help them with tasks such as content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the application a direct threat to Redditcausing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have very different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too early to know if there will eventually be a significant migration of Reddit users to the Forum.
This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at creating its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company launched its Twitter competing application. Rags in 2023, and more recently, debuted Snapshotsan Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with disappearing instant photos.
Interestingly, this time Meta launched this app with little fanfare. We couldn’t find any major announcements or press releases. The application has just appeared on the App Store and some eagle eyes Users noticed it. Which begs the question: Could this be the start of a flood of new AI-enabled apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees?
At the end of last month, the Wall Street Journal published an article detailing a company-wide meeting in which Zuckerberg spoke about Meta AI Review which has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from incorporating AI into workflows and how the company “will be able to launch more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include the creation of more applications.
“So, as Chris (Cox, Meta’s chief product officer) and I have been talking about, ‘okay, well, can we make 50 new apps? Yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted in the article. “But we should probably start doing a few before trying to do 50 all at once.”
