Facebook Shutters Down Its Experimental Apps Lab

Facebook’s Creative Labs, the initiative that nurtures innovation inside the social media company, has been shut down. According to USA Today, Facebook also pulled the apps that were developed at the Experimental Apps Lab from the app store and also the initiative’s website. Some of these apps include Snapchat clone Slingshot, video sharing app Riff, and anonymous group messaging app Rooms.

Fortune cited a spokesperson, who said that the decision was mainly a strategic one, as some of the elements of the apps created from Creative Labs were already implemented in the main Facebook apps.

Referring to Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff, the spokesperson said, “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.”

The news site noted that Paper, a news reader app also produced by Creative Labs, will remain available. However, it is only inevitable that it will be shuttered too, as Facebook is reportedly integrating elements of the app into the social media platform’s news product, Instant Articles.