Facebook wants to get into the meme-making business with a new app called Whale.
The app was quietly rolled out by the platform last week according to a report by The Information and is currently only available via the Canadian App Store.
Whale allows users to overlay text and special effects over pictures and then share their creations to Instagram or Messenger.
According to The Information, the app was made by an experimental group inside Facebook called the New Product Experimentation team which sets out to 'help the company find new features and services that people like.'
The group has conjured up similar offerings like Aux, which bills itself as a 'live school radio' and Bump, a messaging app that is designed to connect college students.
Whale, the group's latest, offering comes with interesting timing, as Facebook is facing increasing competition from relative newcomers like TikTok.
Facebook and TikTok, a social media app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, have recently begun upping the ante in a battle for social media supremacy.
This month, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, introduced a feature in Brazil called Reels which copies a style of post that made TikTok popular - short videos that are edited and set to music.
At the same time, TikTok has started to dip its toes into e-commerce, allowing some high-profile users to begin linking to their shops and stores within posts and user bios.
Users are then able to access a store and buy merchandise all without leaving TikTok's main app.
This is a significant step for TikTok, especially in its competition with Instagram which rolled out similar capabilities for users earlier this year.
While Whale may intrigue some, it's worth noting that many of the standalone apps have often been killed shortly after being released.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
