Sources: Facebook is working on a new TikTok-like music app to let users record and share videos of themselves lip-syncing or dancing to popular songs
Josh Constine @JoshConstine / 8 hours — Facebook is working on a new app that it hopes could win back the attention of teens …
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands mid-campaign: months earlier, Facebook had already tested Lip Sync Live inside the main app to counter musical.ly, signaling that licensed-music video was a strategic gap, not an experiment. Weeks after this story, the effort surfaced as a real product when Facebook quietly shipped Lasso on iOS and Android.
The arc didn't stop there — two years later Facebook launched Collab, another TikTok-inspired music app, showing the company was willing to run multiple standalone bets against short-video rather than fold the feature back into News Feed.
First-order effects
- Facebook's teen-engagement problem gets a dedicated product answer: instead of bolting music video onto the main app, it builds a separate clone where TikTok and musical.ly already own the habit.
- The app only works if Facebook can secure sync rights to popular songs — the same licensing hurdle its Lip Sync Live test cleared by letting users upload videos with copyrighted music.
Second-order effects
- Music labels gain leverage as Facebook joins TikTok and musical.ly bidding for the same catalog, turning short-video sync licenses into a competitive market rather than a per-platform negotiation.
- TikTok faces a rival with distribution muscle but no proven recommendation feed, forcing it to defend teen users on product velocity while Facebook iterates through multiple app attempts.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, incumbent social platforms respond to format-shifting upstarts by spinning out copycat standalone apps — accepting portfolio fragmentation and high failure rates rather than ceding a format outright.
- Short-form music video becomes a standing battleground where catalog access, not camera features, is the moat, pushing platforms toward durable label partnerships as core infrastructure.
The trend: Social incumbents are answering short-video upstarts with fleets of cloned standalone apps, making licensed music catalogs the contested resource that decides who keeps teen attention.