Facebook is launching a new Facebook Watch hub in the United States with podcasts, live audio, and short-form video clips to complement its existing audio initiatives.
With a new Audio tab, Facebook is bringing all of the audio formats it supports. The company also says that it’s also making its Clubhouse rival, Live Audio Rooms, “more broadly available to global users, and is beginning to roll out a new product called Soundbits, a sort of TikTok for audio offering short audio clips.”
Facebook Audio feature is now accessible
As of now, the new Audio page is accessible to all Facebook users in the United States on iOS and Android devices. It may be found under the Watch section.
The company says the new destination will help creators to have their shows found, while Facebook users will be able to find audio content from favorite creators, discover new ones, and access content they had saved for later. At launch, the Audio section will feature the content from the creators you’re already following and will include a set of personalized recommendations as well as suggestions of other audio that’s popular across Facebook.
The firm is developing three main products: Soundbits, Podcasts, and Live audio.
- Soundbites: It’s Facebook’s new short-form audio product that will serve users a stream of brief clips. It will be “an audio version” of Instagram Reels, according to Zuckerberg.
- Podcasts: Facebook is also building a podcast discovery tool for creators to share their podcasts with users on the platform. Mark Zuckerberg says the company could potentially partner with an external podcast app so users could listen to podcasts in the background of their Facebook experience.
- Live Audio: Facebook’s CEO suggested that there will be ways live audio can help the company boost the creator economy. “Every once in a while a new medium comes along that can be adopted into a lot of different areas.”
