Facebook reportedly working on app for live group video chat

San Francisco: Facebook is reportedly working on a stand-alone app that would soon help its over two billion users make live group video chats on its platform.

According to a report in The Verge late on Wednesday, the app that copies technology startup Life On Air`s popular group video chat app `Houseparty` was recently demonstrated for employees and is being targeted for a fall release.

The new app has the working name `Bonfire`. Details about `Bonfire` are still unclear though it was described as "essentially a clone of Houseparty".

Facebook`s move comes after Life On Air had helped make live broadcasting popular with its app `Meerkat`, which inspired its eventual competitors Facebook`s `Live` and Twitter`s `Periscope`.

`Houseparty` is especially popular among teenagers and by November 2016, it had 1.2 million users spending a total of 20 million minutes on it daily.

It works by notifying a user`s friends whenever they have the app open, inviting them to hang out virtually on their smartphones.

According to the report, employees at Facebook were also recently shown an app called `Talk`, designed to encourage younger people to communicate with their grandparents using video chat.