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Launched in the spring of 2020 in the United States and Canada, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tuned application will stop working at the start of the school year. It has only been downloaded around 909,000 times on the App Store and Google Play.
© Getty — Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket
Meta digs a new grave in her graveyard of abandoned projects. This is Tuned, a social app for couples. Launched in the spring of 2020 in the United States and Canada, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will stop working at the start of the school year. Its users received a notification advising them to upload their data by September 19, reports TechCrunch.
Born from the imagination of the team in charge of experimental products, the Tuned application offered couples the possibility of staying in touch during the pandemic, with many lovers unable to see each other due to the measures of confinement applied in many countries. In these difficult times, the application was thus “an intimate space” where they could converse one-on-one and express their feelings via quizzes. But also send notes, photos, voice messages, music. Sharing more intimate content was also possible, using a password or a fuzzy filter.
Barely 909,000 downloads in two years
This approach was intended to be original in the Meta ecosystem, which is more accustomed to offering applications intended to connect several people. But it is precisely this overly differentiating character that certainly got the better of its existence, not to mention that the app met a specific need in a very particular period. Moreover, it has been downloaded only about 909,000 times on the App Store and Google Play, according to the firm Sensor Tower.
In just two years of existence, this service has nevertheless enabled Meta to collect valuable data to improve its advertising targeting to couples. As a reminder, the economic model of the group led by Mark Zuckerberg is based almost exclusively on advertising revenue ($115 billion in 2021).
Diem and Novi also abandoned
The closure of Tuned adds to the list of projects abandoned by Meta in recent months. The Californian firm notably gave up Diem, its digital currency, as well as its Novi digital wallet. In addition to the abandonment of certain projects in which Meta placed great hopes, in particular in cryptocurrencies in order to create an alternative global financial system, the group is also faced with other issues, such as the future of Facebook and Instagram which is threatened. in Europe.
And for good reason, the clauses surrounding the transfer of data between the Old Continent and the United States are legally more fragile since the Privacy Shield was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the summer of 2020. Result, the Irish Cnil (baptized DPC for Data Protection Commission) could well prohibit Meta from repatriating European data to the country of Uncle Sam. But such a cut would be a blow, both for Meta and for Europe , which has around 400 million monthly Facebook users.