INQUISITR.COM / Science & Tech

Facebook Reportedly Working On Its Own Standalone Camera App

By Val Powell
Published on: 23:45 PST, Apr 25, 2016

After showing off some cool upcoming features during its F8 conference earlier this month, it seems like Facebook is trying to move further in its goal of luring more people to share content through its platform.

According to a report by The Verge, the social media giant is reportedly working on a standalone camera application where users can take pictures, record videos, and directly post them on their Facebook profiles.

The report claims that Facebook is aiming directly at Snapchat and its millions of users worldwide.

The upcoming Facebook camera app will immediately launch the camera to allow the user to perform any of these tasks: take selfies, apply filters to photos, record, and even stream video clips.

The new development is once again proof that the social media website is looking to expand its portfolio in video sharing, which it believes will be the next big thing in social networking.

In addition, Facebook is factoring the contribution of its 1.6 billion users, as well as high-end phones and lightning-fast Internet speeds to this trend of video sharing.

However, while the number of Facebook users continues to rise, a growing trend shows more users are not sharing any type of content after they log into their accounts. These users just check their timelines to get updates on their friends, family, and colleagues, after which they log out.

Technology news website The Information reported that in 2015, original sharing of personal stories was down by 21 percent compared to the previous year. The data showed that this trend is more common among users who are below 30 years old.

Still, a Facebook spokesperson downplayed the findings at that time and said that overall sharing remains strong on Facebook.

It appears that confidence is slowly waning as more people are using other websites and applications for sharing content, especially videos.

That is why earlier this year, the social media giant reportedly acquired face-swapping app Masquerade. The application featured several silly live filters and selfie themes and was immediately adopted by smartphone users both young and old.

Interestingly, Masquerade is still available on Google Play and the Apple App Store, which has given rise to speculation that Facebook was interested in the technology behind the app as opposed to actually making it part of the platform.

Masquerade has already shared that it is very excited about partnering with the biggest social media company in the world.

“Video communication is exploding,” said Masquerade Technologies, Inc. as mentioned in a blog post.

“At Masquerade, we’ve worked hard to make video more fun and engaging by creating filters that enhance and alter your appearance. Now, we’re excited to join forces with Facebook and bring the technology to even more people,” the post added.

“This is a scale of audience we never imagine was possible,” as written in the post, talking about the 1.6 billion active users of the well-known platform all over the world.

In a report by TIME, the new app is still in its early stages of development, although there are reports claiming that the app will never be released publicly.

The new Facebook application may fail as well, just like most of the apps that the company has unveiled through the years from its Creative Labs division. When Facebook shut down the division in December, all the other apps – Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff – went down with it.

Only Facebook Messenger has managed to stay alive in the app market, but only because the company took away messaging from its own app.

It is also not the first time that Facebook has worked on a camera application. Facebook Camera was launched in 2012, even before the acquisition of Instagram. Unfortunately, it was shut down two years later.

[Photo by Joerg Koch/AP Images]

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