With up to 700m monthly active users Facebook gives Groups its own app

19 Nov 2014

Social networking giant Facebook has recognised the juggernaut that is Facebook Groups with its own dedicated iOS and Android app. Between 650m and 700m people communicate via Groups every month.

The move is part of a broader Facebook strategy to unbundle core features into standalone services, as for example as with its Messenger app.

Users can still use Facebook Groups inside the main Facebook app.

The slick new app presents Groups as individual bubbles and can be used by groups of friends, family to people discussing causes and pretty much goes to the core of what Facebook was all about before the News Feed became front and centre.

When you open the new app you will see all your Facebook Groups in one place with the groups you use the most appearing closer to the top.

The new Facebook Groups app, part of Facebook Creative Labs, is available in all countries on Android and iOS from today.Users can easily start a new Group and invite friends by tapping Create. Users can also discover new groups based on pages they’ve liked, groups their friends are in, where they live and so on.

Hitherto Facebook’s popular Groups app had been hidden under layers of different pages and was hard to find, so the 700m user count out of 1.3bn Facebook users worldwide is a success in spite of itself.

It is understood that users who are part of Facebook Groups publish more than 2.5bn pieces of content every month.

The new app comes hot on the heels of news that Facebook is reportedly working on a new website called ‘Facebook at Work’, bidding to compete directly with tech giants Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn in the professional communications area.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com