Facebook Shuts Down Creative Labs

In more shutdown news today, Facebook has also announced they’re closing Creative Labs, their internal initiative aimed at shipping separate, more creative apps. Ian Sherr, writing at CNET:

As of Monday, Slingshot, Rooms and Riff, an app that allowed users to create and share short videos based on a theme, have been pulled from app stores. The Menlo Park, California-based company has also removed the Web page for Creative Labs.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the apps had disappeared, noting they hadn’t been updated in some time.

“Since their launches, we’ve incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps,” she added.

Creative Labs was also behind Paper, the company’s alternative Facebook app, which is still only available on the US App Store. Personally, I’ve always preferred Paper’s interactions to the official Facebook app, but I feel like it’s going to follow the same path as the other Facebook apps.