Facebook F8 conference is usually their developer focused conference that they use to share new features that they are planning for their ecosystem.
In 2019’s edition, Facebook decided to announce some new features for the platform and they are quite many. They are based on Mark Zuckerberg’s previous commitment to unify Facebook’s app assets and make it more ‘privacy’ focused.
Facebook’s new Design and focus on groups
This was probably the shocker of the day. Facebook decided to roll out a fresh design of Facebook which they say is ‘faster’ and ‘more immersive’.
This redesign puts groups first, which is not odd since they have been focusing on groups lately. There is a redesigned Groups tabs to discover new groups and other new tools to make it easier to get group recommendations and new features to support specific communities.
On Facebook Dating you can opt in to discover potential matches and they are now expanding to 14 countries. There is also a new feature called Secret Crush where you can select upto 9 people as your crushes and if your friend has opted in to Facebook Dating and adds you to their list, it’s a match.
There is also other improvements. There is now shipping on Market place and added Meet New Friends to help you start new friendships with new people and a new events tab.
Messenger
Facebook is re-engineering Messenger again from the ground up to make it faster and lighter. It became bloated for a while and this is good for it.
They are also adding new features like allowing you to discover and watch videos from Facebook in real time. There will be also a new desktop app for Messenger for Windows and MacOS which is weird since we already have one already.
Facebook is also adding lead generation templates to Ads Manager so that businesses can easily create an ad that dives people to a simple Q&A in Messenger to learn more about them.
For Instagram, Facebook will introduce a new camera design that includes Create Mode. Create mode will make it easy to use tools like effects and interactive stickers without the need to use a photo or video
They have also added a way for one to fund-raise for causes and the ability to shop from creators without leaving Instagram.
Facebook’s changes to WhatsApp are minimal. They have added Business Catalogs which will allow businesses showcase their goods so that people can easily discover them.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Facebook relies on AI a lot on a variety of products and especially for detecting problematic content that violates their policies.
Now they are working to make sure that their AI systems can understand content with little supervision. They have a new approach to object recognition called Panoptic FPN that helps their AI systems understand context from the backgrounds of photos,
