Facebook Closes Creative Labs; Slingshot, Rooms, Riff Removed From App Stores

Facebook has pulled the plug from its Creative Labs, the venture that encouraged its employees to develop innovative and unusual mobile software, CNET reported. The division developed apps like Slingshot, Rooms and Riff.

The apps – Slingshot, an ephemeral messaging service that competed with Snapchat; Rooms, a group messaging service; and Riff, an app that allowed users to create and share short videos based on a theme – apparently failed gain traction and on Monday the social networking giant removed all three of them from app stores.

The company has also removed the Web page for Creative Labs. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed to The Verge that the apps had been removed.

"Since their launches, we've incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps," a Facebook spokeswoman told The Verge. "We haven't updated these apps in some time and we've decided to officially end support by removing them from the App Store and Google Play."

According to Facebook page, Rooms will be “closing its doors” on December 23, 2015. Users will no longer be able to post anything but will be able to delete any content they’ve posted earlier. Regarding Slingshot, the company said that the app has been removed from the App Store and Google Play, however, people who have already downloaded the app on their phones can continue to use it.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook will continue to develop standalone apps but not under the banner of Creative Labs. It will continue to support other Creative Labs projects, including its news-reading app Paper, photo-sharing app Moments, chat app Groups and others.

“We’re continuing to embrace the spirit of creative risk-taking by continuing to allow some smaller development teams within the company to experiment with new ideas for standalone apps,” Facebook said.