Facebook Is Developing LOL, A Meme Hub For Teens, As A Desperate Attempt

Dhir Acharya - Jan 21, 2019


Facebook Is Developing LOL, A Meme Hub For Teens, As A Desperate Attempt

The social network is reportedly working on LOL, a new feature or app where teens can view or upload their own funny videos.

Looking on the bright side, Facebook could be somewhat representative of relentless effort. After failing to approach teenagers with Facebook Watch, IGTV, and Lasso, the social network is now secretly working on another product for the youth.

Facebook LOL Mark Zuckerberg How do you do fellow kids

Another effort to attract teens

According to several sources, the company has been developing LOL for months, which is a special feed including funny videos and GIF-like clips. LOL consists of categories namely For You, Pranks, Fails, Animals, and more, whose contents are picked from top meme Pages’ posts on the network. To show contents focused on one category, users just need to click the button on the top of the screen.

Screenshots of a recent design showcase LOL greeting users with a carousel of themed collections called “Dailies” such as “Look Mom No Hands”, which is similar to the Discover section on Snapchat.

When opening a Dailies collection or scrolling, users will see LOL turn into a theater mode with black borders that automatically move to the next video after one finishes. Each video is cut into several-second sections so users can scroll through quickly like on Instagram.

In addition, there are LOL reaction buttons under each video for Not Funny, Alright, and Funny. Users can also share videos or upload their own funny clips.

…is in test phase

Right now, LOL is being tested on about a hundred school teens that signed an agreement not to disclose the information as well as are allowed by their parents to do focus groups and testing one on one with Facebook staff.

The company confirmed that it was conducting small scale tests on LOL. While testers are using LOL to replace the Watch tab, it’s unclear whether LOL will become a feature on Facebook or an app itself, and whether Facebook will roll out LOL or not.

LOL appears to be another attempt from Facebook to gain back its young users since they’re moving to Stories for sharing and viewing contents. Not only does LOL gather the most hilarious contents on the platform, but it also digs up videos from a year ago.

…which is likely to be another failure,

However, there’re a few things that make us doubt LOL’s success. For one thing, LOL’s feed is sometimes weeks old, meaning its teenage audience may have seen already. On the other hand, since parents have overrun Facebook for years, teens have got cautious on Facebook and moved to other platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram. All in all, it looks like Facebook will have difficulties building LOL’s young fanbase.

Previously, Facebook failed several times in attracting teenage users, like with Snapchat clones – Slingshot and Poke, or a new app like Lifestage, or even acquisitions like TBH. Over the years, teens have moved from feeds to Stories where Facebook can make less money has caused the company’s share price to drop significantly.

Considering that, if Facebook cannot overcome the age gap, it may even be eliminated when the next generation joins social media.

but Facebook won’t give up on teenage users.

That’s for sure, no matter how many embarrassing failures it takes. Lasso, Facebook’s version of TikTok was downloaded only 10,000 times in the first 12 days but the company still makes updates like Relasso – a feature similar to Retweet. However, the opportunity here is that meme sharing is a lot more popular than musical video sharing.

Teenagers discover memes on Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and exchange them in direct messages. Except for Imgur which allows various styles of storytelling, there is no other space just for memes.

Instagram is like the current leader regarding this, where users follow meme accounts for daily fresh joke dumps. So if Facebook can provide a meme making tool and a dedicated viewing hub, it might get a chance.

Comments

Sort by Newest | Popular

Next Story