Facebook has been one of the many companies coming up with new apps that can take on Tiktok. Well, they did launch Lasso that they hoped would bring in some rival although that hasn’t worked at all.

In fact, it has been so bad that Facebook has announced that they will be shutting down Lasso. The short-video app that was launched in late 2018 will be closed down July 10th. This has apparently been revealed to all its users as well.

Lasso had gained some traction among young users in China among other countries, showing some little promise. With the app, users could shoot clips as long as 15 seconds and overlay popular songs. Basically, it was TikTok’s clone with a different name and parent company.

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Additionally, the app was centred around an algorithmic feed for recommended videos. Users were also allowed to tap through trending hashtags and a Browse page of themed collections.

It is, however, so unfortunate that the app never got to all countries including Kenya.

Facebook’s TikTok clone lasso is shutting down ahead of the Instagram Reels launch, so basically Fb lost 2 years by half-assing. Brb, gotta go save my zero Lassos pic.twitter.com/VgKImjgWM4

— Josh Constine -SignalFire (@JoshConstine) July 2, 2020

The unlucky shutdown comes just before the launch of Reels, Instagram’s own short video-sharing app. Although no particular reason has been given for the decision, it would seem as if Facebook wants to shift all its focus on the new product.

What is clear is that Lasso’s development faced troubles from the very beginning.

But we can also admit that TikTok’s popularity across the globe is almost unbeatable by now. YouTube has also revealed plans to have its own app, meant to be a rival to TikTok. So, it will be interesting to see how all these rival apps fair on once they launch globally.