Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that Facebook is launching a series of new tools and features designed to help users better connect with each other and their favorite creators through audio.
Why it matters: The digital audio craze exploded during the pandemic, prompting some of the biggest tech and social media giants to adopt new audio features.
Details: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a community through the Discord Monday chat app, hosted by independent journalist Casey Newton, and provided a product roadmap for how it plans to build its audio suite over the next 3-6 months. (Vox first reported the plan on Sunday.)
- Soundbites: Facebook’s new short audio product will serve users a stream of short clips. Zuckerberg says this product is an audio version of its TikTok-like video product Reels. Users can share individual clips to their news feeds, or they can use a series of audio clips put together and distributed algorithmically in a feed.
- Podcasts: Zuckerberg says Facebook will build a podcast discovery tool that allows creators to share their podcasts with users on Facebook, as well as for users to view and discover podcasts on Facebook. He alluded to Facebook potentially partnering with a third-party podcast app and directing users to that app to listen to podcasts in the background of their Facebook experience.
- Live audio: “Every now and then a new medium comes along that can be applied in many different areas,” said Zuck, using the news feed as an example. Zuckerberg suggested there will be ways live audio can help Facebook boost the creator economy.
The big picture: Zuckerberg has been experimenting more with audio platforms lately as the trend increases. A few weeks ago, he unveiled a new retail partnership with Shopify on Clubhouse, a vibrant new audio startup that recently raised a new round of fundraising worth $ 4 billion.
- “It’s also a lot more accessible from a production experience,” said Zuckerberg, who discussed audio as a medium.
- Zuckerberg said Facebook’s goal is to build a range of audio products that will eventually be as strong as its text, photo, and video products. “In a high-level photo, we think audio will also become a premium medium,” he said
What they say: Zuckerberg said many of these audio efforts are designed to help creators monetize their work.
- “We are really more focused on the maker side than the consumer side,” he said.
- Zuckerberg noted that Facebook’s new tipping platform “Start” “went pretty well, better than expected”.
- He said the company is also building out infrastructure for things like donations or subscriptions that will allow creators to monetize their products that can one day be applied to audio.
Yes but: The audio tree has some risks to content moderation.
- For example Clubhouse close rooms discussing “Jewish White Privilege” Sunday after reports of anti-Semitic comments surfaced on Twitter.
- Zuckerberg says Facebook’s current moderation infrastructure, which includes thousands of content moderators, can be used in this new area.
Go deeper: Dollars are pouring into live audio while moderation issues loom
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include more details from Zuckerberg’s interview and to include Vox’s story on Sunday’s audio plan.