Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has released a new app that some are saying is remarkably similar to Pinterest. The new app is called Hobbi and it is an editor and organizer for hobbies and projects that the user is interested in. The app’s description reads, “Organize your photos into visual collections and see the progress you’re making over time.”
Hobbi was developed by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team. The team is tasked with inventing new social and related services to either function as standalone apps or be folded into the company’s already-established products. Hobbi is its fourth app experiment. It has already been released in Colombia, Belgium, Spain, and the Ukraine.
Hobbi’s features would make it a direct competitor to Pinterest. Pinterest is a social media network for sharing photos and other material organized by topic. For instance, you can create different themed collections for arts and crafts, recipes, cooking, and more. Pinterest shares fell more than 4 percent in after-hours trading after the news broke.
What differentiates Hobbi from other Facebook apps is the lack of a social networking component. The only social component is the ability to create a “video highlight reel” to share via other platforms. The main idea of the app is to track the progress you’re making over time.
Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team has already released three other apps. Its first experiment, a meme editor called Whale, has already shut down. In November, it launched a chat app called Bump and a social music app Aux. It remains to be seen how popular those offerings will become.
