Facebook is shutting down three of its services – Moves, tbh and Hello. The company had acquired these apps over the years and says that it is shutting them down due to low usage. Moves is a fitness tracking app, while tbh is an anonymous social media app for high school students in the US. Hello was launched in 2015 for Android users in the US, Brazil, and Nigeria. It enabled users to combine information from Facebook with contact information on their phone. Facebook says that all user data will be deleted from the three services within 90 days, but the apps are expected to stop working earlier. Hello will be deprecated in a few weeks and Moves app and its API will stop working on July 31.
Explaining its move to dissolve the services, Facebook states, “We regularly review our apps to assess which ones people value most. Sometimes this means closing an app and its accompanying APIs. We know some people are still using these apps and will be disappointed — and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support. But we need to prioritize our work so we don’t spread ourselves too thin. And it’s only by trial and error that we’ll create great social experiences for people.”
Facebook and other companies make acquisitions based on what they see could help their platforms gain popularity and increase functionality. It seems that these three investments by the social media platform were going nowhere and hence the company decided to close the curtains on them. Facebook had acquired Moves four years ago, while tbh was bought just eight months ago. Also, Facebook says that “It’s only by trial and error that we’ll create great social experiences for people,” and shutting down these apps is said to help the company better prioritise its resources.