Facebook started testing Hotline service – a hybrid of Clubhouse and Instagram Live

Today, the internal Facebook NPE Team, research, and development group launched a public beta of the Hotline service. It can be described as a mixture of Instagram Live and Clubhouse, as the app allows content creators to connect with an audience that can ask questions via text or audio. However, unlike Clubhouse, the speaker can broadcast not only sound but also video.

The Hotline division is led by Eric Hazzard, who joined Facebook when it acquired its Q&A app tbn. The tbn audience reached 2.5 million daily active users. The app had over 1 billion responses at the time it closed. Hazzard can now apply all his developments in the Hotline.

The user interface of the new app is very similar to Clubhouse. The main screen of the application is divided into several parts: at the top, there is a panel with a presenter, where an icon with a user avatar is displayed. At the bottom, there is a panel with listeners’ avatars. In the desktop version, the presenter’s panel is on the right, and the listener icons are on the left. For authorization in the application, a Twitter account and an SMS password are used.

Conference organizers have unlimited control over the conversation, can remove inappropriate questions or disconnect users at their discretion. Unlike Clubhouse, Hotline automatically records conversations. After the end of the event, the presenter receives two recordings: one in MP3 format (audio) and the other in MP4 (video). After that, they can be published on other social networks.

At the time of launch, everyone will be able to join the Hotline. Facebook hasn’t made an official announcement of the service’s launch yet. It’s worth noting that Hotline isn’t the only attempt by the social media giant to compete with Clubhouse. The company recently confirmed that it is developing a similar service called Messenger Rooms.