Top Product Failures of Facebook

Formerly a Big Tech giant, Facebook (now Meta) isn't even among the top 20 most valuable American companies today. Facebook, which has a market cap over $1 trillion, was one of the top five most valuable American businesses last year. The company is currently valued at around $270 billion.

Most people don't expect a business the size of Facebook failing with any of its creations or products. However, this is untrue! Well-known businesses have experienced numerous setbacks along the way. Facebook has had some particularly severe setbacks among these.

Facebook has always been open about its development plans. Few people are aware Facebook struggled in many areas during its early years. Many of Facebook's inventions either received harsh criticism or weren't working for general users. Some of the products violated both internet neutrality and user privacy.

There have been instances where Facebook received harsh criticism in the US and Europe for some of its monetized services that ultimately proved to be a complete failure. In this article, we'll talk about some of Facebook's most notable mistakes. Let's get going!

Poke
Parse
Beacon
Facebook Credits
Creative Labs
Sponsored Stories

Poke

By the end of 2012, Poke, a Facebook application resembling the well-known Snapchat, was released. Since it copied Snapchat's feature of disappearing photos and texts exactly, it was initially quite popular.

In an interview, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Poke was entirely developed in just 12 days by a small team of programmers. It was a result of a marathon coding session called a hackathon.

Later, in comparison to other well-known Facebook products, Poke was  One of Facebook's biggest failures.

Parse

Facebook purchased Parse, a mobile app development platform, in 2013. Facebook had a good feeling about running Parse and growing it to heights, as the business was doing well and had big clients. But when Facebook bought it, things didn't turn out as planned. Facebook discontinued Parse citing a desire to focus more on its core offerings.

Beacon

Beacon, a 2007 release from Facebook, was yet another resounding failure. It was essentially a tracking program that recorded about 50 online activities and purchases of the users. Beacon then published the user's purchase to its News Feeds without getting the user's permission.

Thousands of Facebook users signed petitions calling for the removal of Beacon as it went into effect. Following this, about a month later, Facebook finally stopped using the tracking program Beacon.

Later, Mark Zuckerberg apologized to its users for the bizarre design and promised to do better.

Facebook Credits

Facebook developed a new shopping app for users to shop using the credits they accrued from playing games like Farmville. It was entirely for customers' fun and benefits. However, it was a complete failure because the user couldn't comprehend the procedure. Facebook credits ultimately shut down because of their complicated functioning and process.

Creative Labs

To encourage designers and developers to create more inventive and distinctive mobile apps, Facebook introduced a new product in 2013 called Creative Labs. But the outcome was the opposite. In fact, because of this alone, Facebook experienced two significant failures: the first was Paper, a new reading app, and the second was Slingshot (the second failure of an attempt to duplicate Snapchat).

The majority of Facebook's unsuccessful apps were products of Creative Labs. If it had persisted, it would have led to more failures for Facebook and was the primary reason for the low overhead.

Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories, one of Facebook's most complicated and controversial products, was immediately banned because it might have to misuse risks and threats. But later, Facebook revived it with altered specifications.

Conclusion

One of the most popular social media platforms is Facebook. It has many incredible features and services that enchant the users in all regards. Initially, it faced criticisms and failures with its unusual yet innovative products. Although the ideas were pretty good in most cases, it was not enough to hold onto the audience.

This article clarified a few things regarding the unsuccessful Facebook products. Stay tuned for more articles like this!

FAQ

What are some of the failed Facebook products?

Beacon, Sponsored Stories, Creative Labs, and Facebook Credits are some of the failed Facebook products.

What are some of the companies owned by Facebook?

Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus are some of the Facebook owned companies.

What are some of Mark Zuckerberg's failures?

Facebook crisis, Criticism for his inventions, Securing investment and funding, Invasion of privacy scandal, and Critical need for massive users are some of Mark Zuckerberg's failures.

Who is Facebook's biggest rival??

Facebook relies on Ads as a source of revenue. So Google is the biggest competitor of Facebook when it comes to advertising.