Facebook's new Q&A app Hotline is a mix of Clubhouse and Instagram Live

It is not easy to create explosive products in the cross-border e-commerce industry, and the same is probably true for the social media industry. Otherwise, why would social media giants rush to imitate TikTok and Clubhouse?

The protagonist of today's article, Facebook, is even more powerful. Foreign media reported that Facebook is developing its own "Clubhouse", which is also a Q&A program - Hotline - which can be regarded as a "mashup" of Clubhouse and Instagram Live .

It is reported that Facebook's internal R&D department NPE Team launched the Beta test of Hotline today. The reason why it is called a mashup of Clubhouse and Instagram Live is that Hotline allows chat room hosts to communicate with the audience, conduct text or audio question sessions, and also allows users to turn on the camera to show their faces.

At 1 p.m. Eastern Time , real estate investor Nick Huber launched Hotline's first public live broadcast, telling viewers about his experience of investing in real estate as an additional source of income. Professionals like Nick Huber who can help people learn professional skills or expand their income sources are exactly the content creators Facebook wants to work with.

In terms of the application software's page design, Hotline has many similarities with Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces: when viewed on a computer screen, the left half of the page displays the host's circular avatar or live broadcast screen, and the audience is displayed on the right; on a mobile phone screen, the host is displayed at the top and the audience is displayed at the bottom.

But Hotline also has many special features. Currently, users who are trying Hotline for the first time can log in with one click through their Twitter account . Audiences entering the chat room will be automatically divided into two parts: viewers who only watch but do not ask questions and viewers who have already asked questions . The page will also display the questions asked by the audience, and others can choose to "like" or "dislike" . In this way, the host can view the questions that the audience is interested in and decide the order in which to answer the questions. He can also invite the corresponding audience to the "center of the stage" to have a real-time conversation with them.

Currently, the audience invited to the stage in the center of the screen can only show their avatars and cannot show their true faces like the host. However, the official version of the App should allow the audience to conduct real-time video chat.

During the interaction, Hotline also provided some simple emoji expressions to help viewers express their emotions, including clapping, flames, love, laughter, surprise and thumbs up.

Moderators who open chat rooms on Hotline may enjoy greater control over meetings than other apps. During the chat, the moderator can remove inappropriate questions from the question list and even directly ask the audience to leave the chat room . In a previous test, Facebook employees were able to moderate the chat room and remove any audience who violated Facebook's community standards, terms of service, data policy or NPE team supplementary terms from the group chat.

In addition, Hotline supports conference recording and video recording . The chat room host will receive the audio and video materials of the event after the meeting. The host can upload these materials to other social media software at will and continue to spread them in the form of short videos or audios.

This setting makes the chat room ecology of Hotline and Clubhouse completely different. Clubhouse is more inclined to create a relaxed and pleasant chat room atmosphere. Unless the chat room name indicates that the interaction process will be recorded, it is not recommended that users record the chat content in any form. In contrast, Hotline may be more suitable for more formal lectures, where professionals host and invite the audience to ask questions.

It should be noted that Hotline is just one of the applications that Facebook is currently developing in the process of related attempts, and it may not wait until the day when it successfully passes the test and is officially released, but these attempts made by Facebook will provide more inspiration and experience for its main platforms and services.

Other software Facebook is currently testing include Super, which is similar to the personalized video-sharing site Cameo, Messenger Rooms , another Clubhouse challenger, Venue, another question-and-answer product, and Collab and BARS, video apps similar to TikTok that focus on collaborative music and rap music, respectively.

I have to say these ideas are quite interesting, so let’s wait and see!

Facebook

Hotline

Clubhouse