1F8 Conference Shows How Facebook Plans to Deepen User Engagement
Facebook’s F8 conference demonstrated that the company has grown beyond building a social network and moved into creating a social application platform. Now Facebook is staking its future on becoming a development springboard for augmented reality and virtual reality applications. It introduced Facebook Spaces to enable users to interact with their friends and contacts in virtual environment. In addition, Facebook Workplace, the company’s alternative to the Slack workgroup collaboration platform that so far has gotten off to a slow start, received a much-needed boost at the show. Ultimately, Facebook is developing new ways to encourage users to maintain and deepen their engagement with the world’s largest social network. This slide show will cover Facebook’s latest initiatives.
2F8 Focuses on Social Media as an Application Platform
3It’s All About Attracting and Keeping Users
4Facebook Spaces Delivers VR
5Facebook Enhances Messenger Bots as Commerce Tool
Facebook outlined a plan to enhance Messenger bots, which users can locate in the new Discover tab. Another feature, called Chat Extensions, lets multiple people chat with a company at the same time. Also, the service’s virtual personal assistant M now supports Delivery.com, allowing users to place food orders through the service.
6Companies Can Grow With Messenger
Companies now have tools to expand their presence on Messenger. A new Smart Replies function speeds response to frequently asked customer questions on their company pages. And Facebook developed a new hand-over protocol so companies can work with multiple developers to create different Messenger “experiences.”
7Facebook Workplace Is an Important Initiative
Facebook Workplace received some attention at F8. The productivity platform is now available for free to companies. Facebook also expanded the number of partners to more easily link content between Workplace and services such as Salesforce. In addition, corporate developers now can make custom bots for Workplace.
8Facebook Camera Gain Augmented Reality Features
9Its Supporting the Developer Community
While Facebook focused mostly on its own app development, it wants to make developers’ lives easier, too. The company unveiled Developer Circles, a service that helps identify and fix problems in creating apps for its platforms. The Places Graph provides data on 140 million-plus points of interest around the world that developers can add to their apps.
10Delivering Connectivity to the World
Facebook is also investing in connecting people in emerging markets. The company said it’s made strides in delivering more and faster coverage to disparate parts of the world, and it plans to expand those efforts. Additionally, it announced the Tether-tenna, a helicopter that can deploy emergency connectivity.
11Facebook Working on Advanced Biosensor Input Technology
Facebook has a facility it calls Building 8, where it dreams up advanced concepts. At F8, the company said Building 8 is working on a technology called “silent communication,” which uses non-invasive sensors that can communicate with a user’s brain. When the user thinks up a message, the sensors react and type out the message on a computer.