JAKARTA - Meta is rumored to be halting trials of the Neighborhood service, which officially launched last year to Facebook users in the United States and Canada.
The Neighborhood feature is created to help people connect with the surrounding population. Not only that, this feature can also be used to support local businesses, and ask for recommendations or tips in local groups, as well as offer support and meet neighbors who have the same interest.
But unfortunately, Meta seems to be stopping testing the feature. The announcement was first discovered by a social media consultant and industry analyst, Matt Navarra on Twitter.
Facebook is shutting down its Nextdoor-clone Neighborhoods on Oct 1st h/t @grigg_digital pic.twitter.com/Zob6ny5gf5
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 1, 2022
Matt's image post shows that the announcement was written by Meta Product Manager, Tohm. He said he had received input over the past few months, and got to his decision to close the Neighborhood feature.
"When we launched Neighborhood, our mission was to bring the local community closer, and we have learned the best way to do this is through groups. We will close the group on September 7, and end our Neighborhood testing on October 1, where the feature will no longer exist," Tohm wrote in Matt's post.
The company said that initially it invested in Neighborhood because it saw how popular local content is on its platform. But in the end, Facebook realized the best way to move forward in this field was to allow people to continue using Facebook Groups, as they have done.
According to a TechCrunch report, Neighborhood was first secretly tested in Calgary, Canada in 2020, before launching more officially in Canada and the US last year.
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