Facebook has launched an app called Hobbi via its NPE or New
Product Experimentation team.
The app is quite similar to Pinterest designed to collect
images of your hobbies and interests and then keeping them in boards to keep
check your progress.
Here’s the description of the app on the App Store:
"Hobbi wants to
help you document and remember the things you love to do. You can save photos
of the projects you’re working on and the activities you love to do, whether
it’s cooking, baking, DIY, arts & crafts, fitness or home decor. You can
then organize your photos into visual collections in order to see the progress
you’re making over time. You might just surprise yourself with how much you
have done."
TechCrunch has highlighted that the app is quite like
Pinterest and it is not just about DIY hobbies but focuses on keeping track of
your progress so you can see how you are advancing. On the app, you can also
share videos of your progress with your friends and family. While it may seem
that the app is there to flaunt your hobbies but it is actually centered on
motivating more people to participate in their development.
The app could gain popularity and might even give some
challenge to Pinterest but initially, it appears to be different when it comes to
its use case.
Facebook’s NPE team has released three apps since July of
last year, these apps include Whale – a meme creation app, AUX – a DJ app where
users can get their songs on a group playlist, and Bump – a chat app for students.
Each one of the app launched by NPE is unique in its own way
and although none of them has gained massive popularity, Facebook seems to keep
launching new apps to see which one makes it big.
The NPE team is similar to Facebook’s Creative Labs
development team which Facebook shut down back in 2015 after none of the apps
by the app could become popular. Creating apps to challenge both Snapchat and
Vine, the Creative Labs team couldn’t do much with its experiments. But despite
the competition, the NPE team seems to be taking a different approach given the
apps it has launched.
TechCrunch has also noted that Google has released an app
called Tangi for DIY collections, which gives us an idea that both Google and
Facebook has its eyes in this area.
Although these new apps may not become prominent, they
certainly are a reflection of what people are doing, which could point to new
changes.
