Facebook to soon launch audio suite, live rooms, Facebook podcasts in a bid to compete with ‘Clubhouse’

According to Fidji Simo, head of Facebook's Menlo Park, the company is developing a range of new audio-focused services, including virtual rooms where users can hold live conversations and a tool named "soundbites" that lets users post brief audio snippets to their feed as they might a picture or video.

FidjiSomo said, "We think a lot of magic happens at the intersection of audio formats, as well as at the confluence of text, audio and video," he also pointed out, “We have seen a massive rise of audio experiences” especially during the pandemic times.”

While Facebook chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg told a reporter over a community chat on Discord about the development of the ‘audio suite’ in the coming months. He said, "At a high-level picture here, we think audio is also going to be a first-class medium."

Rooms, which would be close to 'Clubhouse', will be available as an audio format. 'Soundbites', a short-form audio feature which would consist of a collection of small snippets of clips, will be available on Facebook audio products. Soundbites, according to Zuckerberg, will be an audio equivalent of 'Reels', a short video format launched last year by the company.

Simo also talked about ‘Facebook Podcasts’, "Within the next few months, you’ll be able to listen to podcasts directly on the Facebook app – both while using the app or when the app is backgrounded."

Facebook has also decided to start exploring ‘Live Audio Rooms’. We also expect to release Live Audio Rooms on Messenger in addition to Facebook. Simo in his blog wrote about it, "We’ll test Live Audio Rooms in Groups, making it available to the 1.8 billion people using Groups every month and the tens of millions of active communities on Facebook."

The ‘Live Audio Rooms’ functionality would be quite close to that of 'Twitter Spaces', which was also strongly influenced by the Clubhouse app.

Facebook has predicted that these audio channels will intersect, allowing content creators to monetize their work.

Mark Zuckerberg noted in his interview, “Every once in a while a new medium comes along that can be adopted into a lot of different areas,” pointing to this new wave of popularity riding on audio- simulated platforms.