Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday the company planned to launch several audio services, including Clubhouse-style live audio rooms and a way for users to find and play podcasts.
Facebook's incursion into the audio market comes as the sudden explosion of interest in Clubhouse, an audio app where billionaires and celebrities including Tesla CEO Elon Musk have popped in to chat, could be waning. Downloads of the Clubhouse app, which is only available on Apple's iOS devices, suffered an estimated 70% decline in downloads in March from February when it hit a high.
Zuckerberg said the world's largest social media network planned in the coming months to launch features including short-form audio clips called "Soundbites" and ways to create sound effects or improve audio quality. Facebook said in a blog post it would begin to test live audio rooms, which would launch by the summer.
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