Facebook Trials New Meme-Creation App: ‘Whale’

Tapping into a highly profitable market, Facebook is looking to grow it’s market share with the release of their new meme-creation app, ‘Whale‘.

Facebook’s ‘Whale’ allows users to create memes. Photo Credit: StayHipp

Let’s face it, we love to say that we stay on social media to keep ‘up-to-date’ but really, we’re just there for the “Ok, boomer” memes. And somehow, someway (looking at you Zuckerberg) Facebook knows this. With the help of their New Product Experimentation (NPE) team, the social media giant released ‘Whale‘, a meme-creation app, last week.

Restricted to the Canadian app store, Facebook is keeping their latest release under wraps while it is in it’s early stages. So far, what we know is that users will be able to create memes and share them via Facebook’s apps, including Messenger and Instagram, as per The Information.

“No distractions, no hidden subscription pricing” reads the application’s description.

What features are available?

Reading over the available features does not seem to separate itself from similar applications. Using ‘Whale‘, users will be able to edit images using cropping tools, free form drawing tools, text and other special effects.

If you’re more of a visual learner, check out what the app looks like below.

While the app does look elegant in comparison to some of the existing photo editing applications, the real question is whether ‘Whale‘ will work for Facebook in the saturated world of social media.

Will It Work?

Photo Credit: Forbes

This isn’t the first app that Facebook has invented in order to fight back against it’s competitors. In fact, this is the third instalment from the NPE team with their first two apps coming earlier this year.

‘AUX‘ was released in August and is a social media music-listening app. The idea with the app is that users can enjoy and engage with a virtual DJ experience, essentially putting the listener in charge of the playlist. The app has been compared to ‘Turntable.fm‘ that presented much of the same features but was scrapped in 2013. ‘AUX‘ is currently restricted to the Canadian app store.

‘Bump’ followed the release of ‘AUX‘ and acts as sort of a chat widget. Users are able to chat to one another using icebreakers provided by the app. There are no images or extra-curricular features to the app – it’s just for chatting. The app is currently restricted to Canada and the Philippines.

According to techcrunch, both of these initiatives from Facebook’s NPE team have failed to garner much traction.

The NPE team is currently being run Jason Toff, former Vine GM, who may just be shaking off the rust as he begins creating new initiatives. Maybe we will see a resurgence from Facebook, but for now, history does not seem to be on their side.

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