The app no one knew about it is no more.
Lifestage, an app launched less than a year ago by Facebook, was quietly discontinued last week—but no one noticed until Tuesday. The app was intended to serve as an alternative to Snapchat, but exclusively for teenagers, allowing them to take selfes and videos and share them with their classmates.
Created by product designer Michael Sayman while still a teenager himself, Lifestage only allowed young people under the age of 21 to sign up. The limitations on its membership were intended to increase the privacy of its users, but content was public and there was no way to enforce the age rule.
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While the app had never garnered much of a following, it wasn’t until Business Insider reported its closure that others caught on. Luckily for Facebook, the giant does not need its own Snapchat anymore. With 250 million daily users, Instagram and its Stories feature has now surpassed Snapchat’s 166 million. Now Facebook has an effective competitor under its belt—and one that has amassed a slightly larger following than Lifestage.
It’s the second bit of pruning in the space of a few days for Facebook, which has also announced its intention to ax the standalone Facebook Groups app that has been around since 2014.
The company said in a post that it was rather focusing on improving the experience for groups within Facebook’s main app. The app will cease working on 1 September, although groups created within the app will continue to be available in the main Facebook app.
