At this year’s Facebook IRL event held in Austin, Texas, Meta had several announcements about new features. These new additions promise to help discover local events, places, and workshops.
Meta announces new features at Facebook IRL event to better discover local events
Meta held the Facebook IRL event recently. The tech giant announced multiple new features for Facebook. Most of these features aim to help users discover what is happening around them.
One of the features is the new “Local” tab. Facebook indicated it is like a one-stop shop for everything that’s happening in the user’s area. In other words, users discover local events, stuff for sale in the neighborhood, and even groups of people who share similar interests.
Facebook is testing the ‘Local’ tab in n a few cities like Austin, New York City, Los Angeles, and a few others. It could be considered similar to a community bulletin board in a digital and dynamic format that’s customized for each Facebook user.
Another relevant and important feature the Facebook IRL event showcased was the “Explore” tab. Similar to the Local tab, the Explore tab lets users, “dive deeper into their hobbies and interests”.
If the aforementioned tabs help discover local content, Facebook is also making it easier to organize events and send invites across multiple platforms. Facebook users can now invite their Instagram followers to Facebook events. Users can also send invites through text and email.
Facebook Messenger getting Communities and AI assistance
One of the biggest announcements at this year’s Facebook IRL was Meta granting the social media platform a unified stage for multimedia. In other words, users will be able to watch all kinds of videos, from short and funny Reels to longer videos and even live streams, all in one place.
Facebook Messenger too has received a couple of important features. Meta is adding a new feature to Messenger called Communities. It is reportedly like a virtual club for people with shared interests to connect and chat.
Facebook is also deploying Artificial Intelligence for chatting in groups. Users can chat with an AI bot to get answers to their questions. AI will also help summarize long conversations in groups.