Facebook mulls standalone camera app to keep users from wandering

Facebook doesn't like the fact that most users don't dwell in the social network; they just passively visit on a daily basis. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company may be looking to change this "bad" habit by developing a standalone camera app that would encourage creating and sharing photos and videos all within Facebook.

"People familiar with the matter" claim that Facebook's "friend-sharing" team has developed a prototype for an app that would open to a camera and allow users not only to take and share photos but also to record video and start livestreams as well. If the app opens to a camera, it would make it much like Snapchat. Facebook has tried in the past to make a Snapchat-like competitor app called Slingshot that lets users share photos and videos that disappeared after 24 hours. Facebook also dabbled in photo editing and sharing apps—the company developed the aptly named Camera app only to abandon it and Slingshot when neither caught on with users.

Facebook-owned Instagram certainly doesn't have a problem with users just passively visiting the app. That social network has become a place for the most manicured photos, but Facebook is focusing on spontaneous image and video capturing with this latest effort. While Instagram makes users go through multiple steps before posting an image (upload, crop, add filter, edit, write caption, etc), it's likely that Facebook's standalone camera app would encourage users to post without thinking twice.

Facebook is already trying hard to get people to use the site more. Live videos have seen a big push from the company, and the "On This Day" feature lets users relive posts from the past and re-share them instantly. Facebook has also been examining Snapchat trends closely, and it acquired the face-swapping app Masquerade, or MSQRD, last month. Even if Facebook follows the trends and incorporates all of the necessary features into a new camera app, it would still have to be compelling enough to get users to download yet another Facebook-related app to their phones. The Wall Street Journal report claims that while the project is in its early stages, there's a chance it will never be released at all.