Report: Meta Demonstrates Text-Based App to Employees While Preparing Launch

Meta has reportedly demonstrated its upcoming text-based app to employees.

The app was shown during an all-hands meeting Thursday (June 8) and was said to be “Meta’s response to Twitter,” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (June 9).

Meta did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The app is codenamed Project 92, will be a standalone app and will be released through Meta-owned Instagram, according to the WSJ report.

It will be launched “as soon as we can,” per the report.

It was reported in May that Meta plans to launch a text-based Twitter rival this summer. The new app has been in the testing phase with celebrities and influencers for months.

The text-based app will work closely with Instagram. For example, it will enable users to use just one tap to follow on the new app all the accounts they follow on Instagram and automatically block the same account they’ve blocked on Instagram.

Meta said in March, in response to MoneyControl’s report of the company’s plan to develop a text-based app: “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”

The development of this app comes at a time when Twitter is reportedly continuing to shed advertisers amid businesses’ concerns about hate speech, pornography and ads for online gambling and marijuana companies on the platform.

In the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May, Twitter’s ad revenue dropped 59% from the same period a year earlier.

In May, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that he would transition from CEO into a new role — executive chair and chief technology officer “overseeing product, software & sysops” — and later named former NBCUniversal ad executive Linda Yaccarino chief executive.

Yaccarino tweeted May 13, addressing Musk: “I’ve long been inspired by your vision to create a brighter future. I’m excited to help bring this vision to Twitter and transform this business together!”