Facebook Is Building A Standalone Camera App To Encourage Its 1.6 Billion Users To Share More (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Facebook engineers in London are working on a standalone camera app with a big live-streaming component. Similar to Snapchat, the app would open straight into a camera to foster immediate capturing and posting of photos and videos, as well as letting users stream via Facebook Live. With billions of smartphones in the world and near-ubiquitous high-speed data connections, Facebook sees a huge opportunity to get its 1.6 billion users sharing more than ever before. A camera app may help the company do that, and better compete with Snapchat at the same time. Facebook has recently rolled out a major live video update allowing anyone to post live streams of themselves to their timeline. Previously, only celebrities and public figures were allowed to use the feature. With this new Facebook Live update and standalone camera app reportedly in the works, the only thing holding Mark Zuckerberg back with his plan to triple the size of his social network is affordable internet.

Comments

Re:But their content is all gunk anyway

[plopez]

Stored your image data where it will be held securely and privately to prevent others from using it to train face recognition software [*]

[*] Fine print. Facebook, its parent company, subsidiaries, or business partners may from time to time share such information for quality purposes or for preparation of special offers for your delight. In addition FB et. al. will comply with any legitimate court orders of the country of origin, destination, storage, or transferal including any secret courts as needed to combat terrorism. In addition FB will comply with any treaty obligations concerning such information including edicts of unelected arbitration councils, courts, or enabling legislation. So don't worry, your information is safe from prying eyes.