Facebook says it is launching a new brand of experimental apps for consumers, developed under the “NPE Team, from Facebook” label. NPE stands for “new product experimentation.” The new app will be developed for iOS, Android, and the web, with a specific focus on consumer services, which is similar to Microsoft’s Garage group.
In a blog post announcing the new team, the company notes that it “decided to use this separate brand name to help set the appropriate expectations with users that NPE Team apps will change very rapidly and will be shut down if we learn that they’re not useful to people.”