NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Facebook launched a new app this week called Notify, which lets people get alerts about news stories from partners, including CNN.
The social network hopes that Notify will help Facebook become a destination for news. Launching a standalone app is part of Facebook’s plan to try out something new without messing up its main business.
The company has produced several new apps over the past few years, but they have been niche and mostly discarded or forgotten — with one big exception: Messenger.
Here’s a look at some of the long-forgotten apps Facebook has produced:
Paper
Paper was Facebook’s first foray into creating a dedicated mobile service for reading news. The app, which launched in 2014, lets people collect news stories from various sources based on topics and interests. Paper also shows people posts from their Facebook News Feed.
Camera
Camera was a photo-sharing app designed to make it easier for people to upload and browse their friends’ photos.
But Facebook launched Camera just a few weeks after it snapped up Instagram for $1 billion in 2012. The company removed Camera from app stores last year.
Poke
People poked fun at Poke, because it was like a knockoff of Snapchat. The app let people send self-destructing photos, videos and messages, or poke them.
Poke was introduced in 2012, but Facebook removed the app from app stores last year.
“Since their launch in 2012, we’ve incorporated elements of [Camera and Poke] into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps, including the photo upload flow used today,” Facebook said in a statement to CNNMoney.
Slingshot
Facebook took another stab at a video messaging app in 2014 with Slingshot. The app requires people to first send a message before they can open an incoming one.
Rooms
Later that same year, Facebook came out with Rooms, an app that lets people create and join chat rooms without having to use their real name.
