After a strong start, Hyperlapse looks a lot like Facebook's other failed experiments

Hyperlapse, released under the guise of Instagram, initially out-performed Facebook’s other side projects — Poke, Slingshot, Camera, and Paper — on the App Store charts. But now, a mere six weeks since launch, interest in Hyperlapse appears to be fading fast.

Hyperlapse is Instagram’s iOS-only app for creating smooth, image-stabilized time-lapse videos. If you’ve wondered why your Instagram feed is suddenly filled with unusually speeded-up 15-second videos, Hyperlapse is the reason. Facebook launched Hyperlapse in late August.

Although the iOS-only app’s rating has stabilized around four stars (an unusually high rating for Facebook), the app now ranks #469 overall on the U.S. App Store charts and #48 among top photo and video apps, according to app tracking service App Annie; at its peak, Hyperlapse ranked #3 and #1 respectively. Judging from Apple’s download charts alone, Hyperlapse’s overall App Store ranking decreased 99 percent since launch in the U.S.

Above: Hyperlapse’s App Store ranking by downloads to date in the U.S.

Google Trends data tells the same story; Facebook and Instagram managed to drum up incredibly high interest on launch, but failed to sustain it after a few weeks passed.

Above: Interest in Hyperlapse over time, according to Google Trends

These figures lead us to an important question: Does Hyperlapse’s performance actually matter? Technically, it doesn’t.

The longevity of Hyperlapse has little to no impact on either Facebook’s bottom line or Instagram’s user base. On the day Hyperlapse launched, Facebook’s stock price hardly budged. But over the next few years, Facebook’s users may eventually tire of these experiments if the company can’t launch something new, outside of its core apps, that sticks. And at the very least, the success of Facebook’s experimental apps will indicate how much Facebook will have to rely on mergers and acquisitions to diversify, if in-house projects can’t win over users like Facebook and Messenger have.

Reached for comment on Hyperlapse, Facebook declined to share usage rates or provide any additional data. A person familiar with the matter told VentureBeat that Hyperlapse “started as a side project by a small team of engineers who worked on it during nights and weekends.” Facebook apparently “never expected it to be an everyday app for the mainstream,” we’re told.

Last time we highlighted the less-than-fruitful performance of Slingshot, a Facebook spokesperson told us, “We aren’t focused on downloads and App Store rankings right now.”

Right.

Hyperlapse, for what it’s worth, continues to perform better than Paper and Slingshot, both of which have long fallen off the overall App Store charts in the U.S.