Facebook launched its latest experiment, Hotline, into public beta this week, offering a sort of Instagram Live-meets-Clubhouse platform where creators can speak to an audience through text or audio—with the added option of video.
Real estate investor Nick Huber was the first to publicly test the app, hosting a livestream AMA Wednesday about investing in industrial real estate as a second income stream. Huber, Facebook told TechCrunch, represents Hotline’s ideal host—”someone who helps people expand their professional skills or their finances,” the news site said.
Facebook in 2018 shuttered three “low usage” programs, including tbh, a teen messaging and polling app it acquired the previous year from Eric Hazzard, the new head of Hotline. Currently available only in the US, Hotline requires users to sign in with Twitter and verify their phone number.
Though reminiscent of Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, Hotline has put its own twist on the audio-only social network. As described by TechCrunch, the platform is divided between passive viewers/listeners and active participants, with a Reddit-esque ability to upvote or downvote user questions. The host has the power to choose which queries to answer, remove inappropriate requests, kick people out of the session, and invite audience members directly into the conversation. Everyone else, meanwhile, can react with clapping hands, fire, heart, laughing, surprise, or thumbs up emojis.
Perhaps the most notable difference, though, is that Hotline events are automatically recorded. After each episode, the presenter receives two recordings—one mp3 (audio) and one mp4 (audio and video)—which they can edit and upload to other social networks, turn into a podcast, or just email it out.
“With Hotline, we’re hoping to understand how interactive, live multimedia Q&As can help people learn from experts in areas like professional skills, just as it helps those experts build their businesses,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Facebook’s NPE (New Product Experimentation) team has been testing other multimedia products—voice call service CatchUp, digital music maker Collab, custom rap app Bars—and is “encouraged to see the formats continue to help people connect and build community,” the company added.
