Facebook to take down TikTok rival Lasso and Pinterest rival Hobbi

Social networking giant Facebook has confirmed that it is all set to shut down its recently launched rival to TikTok, Lasso along with the Pinterest rival Hobbi. Both the applications will be terminated on July 10, 2020. Lasso stands more popular between the two applications and the users could record videos up to 15 seconds with music. The applications were launched a year and a half before and is already being terminated.

A spokesperson from Facebook through an email said that they have tried a number of applications and run tests and got to know how people like to express themselves. The spokesperson added that one of the tests was Lasso which is their short-film video app that they have finally decided to take down and remove it from app the app stores from July 10, 2020. The email added that they were thankful to people who used it and shared their creativity. Not many might be knowing about Lasso as it was launched only in a few countries including the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica Ecuador, El Salvador and Uruguay.

Craig Chapple, a mobile insights strategist at Sensor Tower, which is an app tracking firm said that they have estimated ten million downloads till date from the App Store and Google Play. The application had sent out a push alert to its users on June 1, 2020 stating that the app is all set to be shut down.

However, the competition does not end here as Facebook is all geared up to compete with the current dominant TikTok by ByteDance which has so far been downloaded more than 2 billion times. Facebook is now all set with its own video-music app known as Reels. It was launched in Brazil in November and Instagram had then expanded it to Germany and France. On the other hand Hobbi had gone live on the Apple App Store in the U.S.

Photo Credits:  Techcrunch