Reddit likes to bill itself as the front page of the internet, and for the most part, it does a pretty good job at creating a consolidated platform for a variety of interests. But that doesn’t mean its rivals are going to sit back and let that happen. In fact, Meta has announced a new Facebook app called Forum that could challenge Reddit.
Meta launches Forum app to challenge Reddit
In a post by Matt Navarra on Threads, Meta has secretly announced a new app called Forum. According to the app’s description, it seems to place a heavy emphasis on questions, recommendations, and getting answers from “real people.” Sounds familiar? Yea, because that’s more or less the same idea behind Reddit, which is why many people turn to Reddit for actual opinions on products and services rather than blindly trusting online reviews.
It also appears to have AI integrated into the app. The AI will be used to summarize interests, finding conversations, and helping admins manage communities. That being said, it should be noted that this app doesn’t appear to be available for users worldwide. In fact, it still seems to be some sort of experiment.
In a statement provided by a Meta spokesperson, “We test lots of new products publicly to see what people find interesting and useful to their experiences across our apps.” This suggests that depending on its success, Meta may or may not decide to continue supporting it. Either way, we’ll have to wait and see.
This isn’t Facebook’s first rodeo
That being said, it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time Meta/Facebook has attempted to create an online forum. Facebook Groups exist for this reason. However, as some of the comments have pointed out, not everyone necessarily wants to log into Facebook all the time.
Also, many years ago, Facebook attempted to launch Groups as a standalone app. However, it was ultimately discontinued in 2017. Will the new Forum app succeed where the Groups app didn’t? That remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see if it has what it takes to challenge Reddit, but that could be tough.
Reddit is already well-established. People have been using it for years, and there are subreddits that have been around for more than a decade. It will be a hard sell to get users to jump ship.
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