It seems that Facebook has formed a habit of cloning popular apps or integrating features from its competitors into its own platforms. Houseparty, a group video calling app, was fairly popular a few years ago. In 2017, Facebook released its own clone — ‘Bonfire.’ The company has now shut down Bonfire, and it never even arrived in the United States.
Bonfire has already been removed from the Play Store.
Facebook said in a statement, “We will incorporate elements of what we have learned into other current and future products.”
Bonfire’s main draw was, it used rooms that people could join and leave at any point of time, similar to a Discord voice channel.
The app was available only in Denmark, and according to a cached Play Store page, it didn’t even reach 10,000 downloads on Android. If you happen to be one of the handful of Bonfire users, the app that inspired it is still very much alive and kicking. Google Duo also has group video calls now. However, it doesn’t have the same always active room approach that Bonfire had.