Brief:

• Facebook is shutting down its mobile apps Moves, Hello and tbh, according to a Facebook blog post. Facebook said it will delete the user data from all three of these apps within 90 days.
• In 2014, Facebook bought the fitness app Moves, which tracks users daily activity, such as walking, cycling and running. Facebook launched Hello in 2015 for Android users in the U.S., Brazil and Nigeria. It enables people to combine information from Facebook with contact information on their phones.
• Facebook in 2017 acquired tbh, short for "to be honest," an app that urges U.S. teens to leave anonymous positive messages for each other. Facebook acknowledged that existing users of all three apps would be disappointed. "We need to prioritize our work so we don't spread ourselves too thin. And it's only by trial and error that we'll create great social experiences for people," the blog post said.

Insight:

While Facebook is pulling the plug on the three apps, the company still runs the most popular apps in the world, including its main social network with 2.2 billion users, along with Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, each of which has more than 1 billion users. That broad reach gives the company power to cross-promote its apps. Facebook users are given reminders to install Messenger, for example, to chat with friends, family, followers and businesses.

By comparison, the numbers of people who use Moves, Hello and tbh range from a rounding error to a drop in the bucket for the social network. Hello had 570,000 total downloads, while Moves had 13 million and tbh mustered 6.4 million, per Sensor Tower data cited by TechCrunch. Facebook’s marketing prowess and vast reach didn’t translate into more downloads for these apps, even as the company works to appeal to younger audiences that are more enthralled with Snapchat and Instagram.

Meanwhile, Facebook continues to add more features to its existing platforms even as it cuts back on some apps. The social network has billions of dollars to spend on research and development, and it isn’t the first Silicon Valley company to abandon projects that aren’t marketable. The company also has stopped supporting other apps or technologies that didn’t pan out. Facebook in January stopped work on M, a personal assistant app, after more than two years of development. Snapchat clone Lifestage and the Groups app were also cut last year.