Facebook Joins Google In Launching Pinterest-Like App

| Updated: Friday, February 14, 2020, 13:19 [IST]

Amidst privacy and antitrust allegations, Facebook has silently rolled out a new app. From the looks of it, the new app looks quite similar to the DIY app Pinterest. Reports reveal that Facebook's new product division has rolled out Hobbi, a photo-sharing app for sharing and organizing various creative ideas.

Facebook Hobbi

The Facebook Hobbi app is now available on the App Store, which describes it as an app where users can capture and organize your creative processes like cooking, baking, arts and crafts, fitness or home décor. The app is aimed at hobbyists or those who're looking to pick up a new hobby.

The Hobbi app, just like Pinterest, organizes a series of photos into collections, making it easier for users to keep a track of their progress over time. For now, Facebook hasn't introduced a social sharing component, where Hobbi photos and videos could be shared on other Facebook-owned apps. Users can create a video of the projects on Hobbi alone.

A few weeks ago, Google launched a similar Pinterest-inspired app called Tangi. The app was part of Area 120 experimental warehouse. Tangi, like Pinterest and now Hobbi, is a short-form video app focused on DIY projects and creativity.

Currently, Hobbi is available only on the App Store in select market, including India. It's unclear if Facebook would launch it in other markets as well and for Android devices. For now, compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices running iOS 11.0 or later.

Facebook's Experimental App

Following Google's footsteps, Facebook brought out its New Product Experimentation team in 2019. The team works on developing experimental apps outside Facebook's core brands. As part of the initial tests, Hobbi was launched in Colombia, Belgium, Spain, and Ukraine.

Hobbi isn't the first one to originate from the experimental team. There are apps like Whale, to make memes; Bump, another social media app; and Aux, a music DJ app. If you haven't heard or used any of these, you're not alone. None of these apps have achieved much success. It remains unclear how the new Hobbi app would fit into the Facebook brand.

The social media giant had also announced that it would eventually shut down the NPE team, given the track record of failures. Moreover, Facebook already has a heavy load on its shoulders with the renewed investigation of Facebook's acquisitions over the past decade by the FTC.