Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that Facebook would launch a set of new tools and features designed to help users better connect with each other and their favorite creators through audio.
Why it’s important: The fashion for digital audio has exploded during the pandemic, causing several of the big tech and social media giants to redouble their new audio features.
Details: Speaking to a community of the Discord Monday chat app hosted by freelance journalist Casey Newton, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided a product roadmap on how he plans to build his audio set. in the next 3-6 months. (Vox first reported on the plan on Sunday).
- Soundbites: Facebook’s new short audio product will serve users short, short clips. Zuckerberg says this product is like an audio version of his video product similar to TikTok Reels. Users can share individual clips on their news channels or they can consume a string of audio clips joined and distributed algorithmically in a feed.
- Podcasts: Zuckerberg says Facebook will create a podcast discovery tool so that creators can share their podcasts with Facebook users and also so that users can consume and discover podcasts on Facebook. He alluded to Facebook being able to partner with an external podcast app and guided users to that app to listen to podcasts in the background of their Facebook experience.
- Live audio: “From time to time a new medium appears that can be adopted in many different areas,” Zuck said, using the news feed as an example. Zuckerberg suggested there will be ways live audio can help Facebook boost the creators ’economy.
The big picture: Zuckerberg has experimented more with audio platforms lately as the trend increases. A few weeks ago, she unveiled a new business partnership with Shopify at Clubhouse, a new audio startup that recently raised a new round of fundraising that valued her at $ 4 billion.
- “From a production experience it’s also much more accessible,” said Zuckerberg, who discussed audio as a medium.
- Zuckerberg said Facebook’s goal is to build a set of audio products that will ultimately be as strong as its text, photo and video products. “In a high-end image here, we believe audio will also be a first-class medium,” he said
What they say: Zuckerberg said many of these audio efforts are about helping creators make their work more profitable.
- “We really focus more on the creative side than on consumption,” he said.
- Zuckerberg noted that Facebook’s new “Start” tipping platform has gone pretty well, better than expected. “
- He said the company is also building infrastructure for donations or subscriptions that can help creators earn revenue from their products that could one day be applied to audio.
Yes, but: The audio boom presents some risks of content moderation.
- For example, Clubhouse close rooms discussing the “Jewish White Privilege” Sunday later reports of anti-Semitic comments appeared on Twitter.
- Zuckerberg says Facebook’s current moderation infrastructure, which includes thousands of content moderators, can be used in this new area.
In depth: Dollars flow into live audio while moderation issues arise
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with more details from Zuckerberg’s interview, as well as to point out Vox’s Sunday story in the audio plan.