The founder of shuttered Facebook app tbh said he's staying on to build new products
- Facebook is shutting down tbh, an app that allowed US teens to send compliments to their friends through a series of polls.
- Tbh founder Nikita Bier told Business Insider he plans to stay on at Facebook with the app's team and build new products.
- Facebook bought the app less than a year ago, but shuttered it due to "low usage", the firm said on Monday.
Facebook has shut down an anonymous app for teens, tbh, that it bought less than a year ago - but the app's founder said he plans to stay on with his team.
Nikita Bier is the founder of tbh and, asked by Business Insider about his future plans, responded: "I'll be staying with Facebook and continuing to build new products with the tbh team."
It wasn't clear whether tbh's closure, announced on Monday, might mean layoffs. Bier's message suggests not, though he didn't go into further detail about the team or what they might be working on. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tbh had three co-creators aside from Bier: Nicolas Duc-Dudon, Erik Hazzard, and Kyle Zaragoza. All currently work at Facebook as software engineers or product designers.
Tbh is an acronym for "to be honest", and the game-like app allowed US teenagers to send compliments to their friends through a series of quizzes and polls. You can see how it worked here. It was an instant hit, topping the App Store charts last year.
Facebook announced it would buy the three-month-old app in October 2017, with many people interpreting the move as a way for the social network to reach a younger, more fickle demographic. At the time, tbh had 5 million downloads and 2.5 million daily active users.
On Monday, Facebook said it was shutting tbh and two other apps due to "low usage." As Ad Age reported last year, tbh fell down the App Store charts just a month after it was acquired.