Events is Facebook New Standalone App That Helps You Find Stuff to do
While WhatsApp is busy copying Snapchat and Telegram is getting users more entertained, Facebook’s dream is to be your go-to event planner. Now, Facebook is giving its most outgoing users a standalone app for browsing and searching for stuff going on nearby. And thanks to the Facebook Events app’s ability to pull in calendars from your phone, you can see all your plans in one place, so you know when you’re free.
Events app from Facebook is designed for over more than 100 million people seeking to discover things they can do with their friends — from festivals and 5Ks to neighborhood fairs and nightlife. With hundreds of millions of events shared on Facebook every year, Events will help eliminate the fear of missing out.
According to Facebook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal “The 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.” The bigger goal is to find out which features work so the company can “take the best parts and put them back into Facebook.”
The Facebook standalone app is available on iOS in the U.S. and is coming soon to Android. Facebook’s core app will still offer its Events feature, so you won’t be forced to switch like with Messenger. Facebook is still considering how to promote or shortcut to the standalone product from its core app.
How Facebook Events Work
When you launch the standalone app, you’ll immediately see events you’ve been invited to or RSVP’d to that day. Scroll down and you’ll get a filtered feed of Events that Facebook thinks would interest you, based on what friends are going to, your location, your Interests, Pages you’ve Liked and other signals. So if they’ve said they’re “interested” in a nearby food market, you’ll see it immediately — no need to trawl through the News Feed, or hunt for the appropriate section inside the main Facebook app.
So if they’ve said they’re “interested” in a nearby food market, you’ll see it immediately — no need to trawl through the News Feed, or hunt for the appropriate section inside the main Facebook app.
There’s a search tab too, which lets you filter events by time or location. An image-heavy carousel sits further down with suggestions, pulled presumably from your Likes, history, and geographical whereabouts.
Lastly, the Calendar feature, accessible at the bottom, lets you pull in your iPhone’s calendar to show you all your appointments in one place. You can sync other calendars, like Google’s, to your phone, then sync that to Facebook to pull in appointments from wherever. It’s not a full calendar app — but if you’re struggling to keep up with your Facebook-related engagements, maybe this can help.
Facebook has a massive audience, one that’s attracted almost every type of business and event organizer. it’s easy for events — Video, live streaming, friendship anniversary reminders — to get lost amongst the rest of the social noise. A standalone app could bring them back to the fore.