{"id":688,"date":"2016-10-07T17:48:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T17:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-launches-standalone-events-discovery-and-calendar-app.html"},"modified":"2016-10-07T17:48:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T17:48:09","slug":"facebook-launches-standalone-events-discovery-and-calendar-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-launches-standalone-events-discovery-and-calendar-app.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook launches standalone \u201cEvents\u201d discovery and calendar app"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

650 million people use Facebook Events \u2014 100 million every day \u2014 but it\u2019s a smaller sect of hardcore extroverts who discover these parties and meetups, then invite everyone else.<\/p>\n

Now Facebook is giving its most outgoing users a dedicated app<\/a> for browsing and searching for stuff going on nearby. And thanks to the Facebook Events app\u2019s ability to pull in calendars from your phone, you can see all your plans in one place so you know when you\u2019re free.<\/p>\n

The Facebook Events app launches today on iOS<\/a> in the US, and is coming soon to Android. Facebook\u2019s core app will still offer its Events feature so you won\u2019t be forced to switch like with Messenger. Facebook is still considering how to promote or shortcut to the standalone product from its core app.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Facebook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal tells me \u201cThe core thesis behind this app is that if we build something for the people really eager to discover events, people will have a good time.\u201d The bigger goal is to find out what features works so the company can \u201ctake\u00a0the best parts and put them back in Facebook\u201d.<\/p>\n

Indispensable<\/h2>\n

Events is perhaps Facebook\u2019s most unique, differentiated feature. While you can create profiles, share content, and chat on tons of services, there\u2019s no real substitute for Facebook Events.<\/p>\n

\"events-asset1-home\"By doubling down with a standalone app, Facebook could make itself even more indispensable. Attending social, culture, and professional events create memories people attribute to Facebook\u2019s help. Events are also where people make new friends and take photos that end up bolstering Facebook\u2019s network.<\/p>\n

And if event promoters can get more organic reach thanks to the Events app, they\u2019re more likely to post their events to Facebook and even pay to promote them with News Feed ads. It broadens the funnel of promoters who might potentially pay, Koolwal believes.<\/p>\n

Events is one of Facebook\u2019s oldest features, having launched in 2005. But while steadily growing, it was neglected until 2011 when Facebook began trying to recommend local happenings<\/a>.\u00a0Facebook ramped up<\/a> the redesigns and recommendations in 2014, around when Mark Zuckerberg first suggested<\/a> it could eventually get its own app. Events hit\u00a0450 million Events users<\/a> by 2015, and this summer it started offering \u201cFeatured Events\u201d<\/a>, picked by human curators in major cities.<\/p>\n

Last year, Facebook shut down its standalone apps incubator \u201cCreative Labs\u201d<\/a> and several of its products including Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff. But Koolwal tells me \u201cIndividual project teams do have some degree of autonomy to develop things\u201d. Over the last few months, his crew has been running Events app alpha tests to find out what users would want in a standalone product.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went directly to the community. We did several trial runs in six cities across the US with a few hundred people using it\u201d Koolwal explains. Users asked for easy browse-ability, powerful search, and a simple way to know what was coming up.<\/p>\n

Using The Facebook Events App<\/h2>\n

When you launch Facebook Events, you\u2019ll immediately see Events you\u2019ve been invited to or RSVP\u2019d to that day. Scroll down, and you\u2019ll get a feed of Events Facebook thinks you\u2019d be interested in, based on what friends are going to, your location, your Interest, Pages you\u2019ve Liked, and other signals.<\/p>\n

\"events-asset2-search\"<\/p>\n

In the Search tab, you can instantly tap tiles to browse what\u2019s up today, tomorrow, or this weekend. A map lets you see events by location, which you can move around in case you\u2019re planning a vacation or a venture to the far side of town. The search feature lets you choose certain characteristics like day, time, and genre, so you can just see concerts or theater shows.<\/p>\n

Koolwal recounts how his team was leaving a bar in San Francisco and they didn\u2019t want to go home. One member suggested trying to find a comedy show, so Koolwal set the Events app\u2019s search feature to find them a comedy event nearby that night. Minutes later they were in Cobbs\u2019 Comedy Club, at an event none of them had been invited to but that was finally more discoverable.<\/p>\n

\"events-asset3-calendar\"Lastly, the Calendar feature lets you pull in your iPhone\u2019s calendar to show you all your appointments in one place. You can sync other calendars like Google\u2019s to your phone, then sync that to Facebook to pull in appointments from wherever. Koolwal says there was some hesitation amongst the team about whether to build the calendar in because it might seem too utilitarian compared the glossy event pages people can browse, but testers wanted it. He says don\u2019t expect a Facebook app solely for calendaring though, as the space seems pretty well handled already.<\/p>\n

If extroverts enjoy the standalone app, it could help them dispense invitations to the rest of Facebook\u2019s network, getting more users involved in the feature.<\/p>\n

When I talk to people who are grumpy about the world\u2019s incessant social media usage, many say Events is one of the features that keeps them on Facebook. While you can make profiles, share content, and chat on tons of services, Facebook is still the only place to see what things friends are attending, and join in.<\/p>\n

Facebook has long been criticized for isolating us from the real world, encouraging us to watch it through a screen instead of live it. But if the social network can find you a gallery opening,\u00a0r\u00e9sum\u00e9 workshop, or tailgate in your neighborhood, that might offset those nights alone scrolling the feed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/BNZlXObh5ew\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

650 million people use Facebook Events \u2014 100 million every day \u2014 but it\u2019s a smaller sect of hardcore extroverts who discover these parties and meetups, then invite everyone else. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t