It seems Facebook has a new app on the horizon, ‘Talk’. At present, the app has yet to be announced or confirmed by Facebook, but it seems details on its existence and its purpose have been spotted hidden within the code of the main Facebook app, first noted by The Information. As a result, it does seem as though Talk is going to be an app squarely aimed at the younger generation. While also being an app that is quite dissimilar to other apps popular with younger users in a fundamental way.
The reason for this, is that the code comments noted seem to highly suggest that Talk will really be aimed at the parents. While the core functionality of the app will be for younger users, the unique selling point will be that Talk allows parents to control their children’s Talk account. So much so that parents will seemingly be able to control who their children talk with. This function was explicitly described with the code stating “Talk is a messaging app where you fully control the contacts.”
In spite of this being understood as a standalone and separate app, Talk will be somewhat integrated with other Facebook apps and services, and in particular, Messenger. With other parts of the reported code describing “your child uses the Talk app to chat with you in Messenger.” One possibility here is that parents will not actually need to install the Talk app themselves. At least, not for communication purposes, as they will be able to talk with their children across applications. With the highly-suggested parental control aspect in play as well, if the parents do not need to install the app, then the assumption would be that controllable aspects could very well be possible from the parent’s main Facebook account. Speaking of which, while Talk will be (to some degree) connected to Facebook accounts and services, the teens themselves will not need a Facebook account to make use of the app. Which is another possible indication that the app will be primarily linked to the parent account. On a last note, the app will reportedly not be for users under the age of 13.