Facebook reportedly losing interest in its podcasting plans

After foraying into podcasting and audio features, Meta-owned Facebook is likely losing interest in its podcasting plans, media reports say.

Facebook is said to be pulling back from its foray into podcasting and is looking to prioritise other initiatives in collaboration with its podcast partners, citing reports, TechCrunch reported.

According to its sources, Facebook is now focused on pursuing other opportunities with podcast partners -- like events in the metaverse and e-commerce.

Facebook's parent company Meta is also said to be prioritising short-video projects above other initiatives, likely due to increasing competition from popular short-form video app TikTok, the report said.

In an email to TechCrunch, a Meta spokesperson said the company is seeing good engagement with its audio features and believes that audio is an important medium for expression.

The company also said it has been getting feedback from creators on what's working well and what it can improve on. Meta did not elaborate on the matter any further.

Recently, Facebook announced several audio products like a short-form experience called Soundbites and the arrival of podcasts on its main platform. Soundbites are short-form, creative audio clips for capturing anecdotes, jokes, moments of inspiration, poems and other things.

To kickstart Soundbites, Facebook had introduced an 'Audio Creator Fund' to support emerging audio creators and get early feedback on the new product experience.